Guyana’s success at cattle embryo transfer above world average – Dr Ramsammy

BY KRISTEN MACKLINGAM –

Government spends billions of dollars in the agriculture sector each year and continues to place major focus on improving the number and quality of livestock locally.
To date, 20 calves have been produced through the embryo transfer method which began in Guyana about a year ago.
The Agriculture Ministry through the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) introduced embryo transfer in 2012 as a method to improve the quality of breeds in the livestock industry.

Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy last Thursday, along with officials of the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA), visited a three-week-old calf at the GSA’s livestock farm.
He told Guyana Times International that the calf was born as a result of inserting a pure-bred embryo from a Semintal breed into a local heifer.
“The calf is a pure-bred Semintal breed animal and this will be used in the improved breeding programme of GSA. GLDA’s staff has so far made 31 embryo transfers among heifers owned by farmers throughout Guyana. Of this total, 20 of them were successful,” he noted.
According to the agriculture minister, the success rate of this method is presently 63 per cent.
Guyana Times International understands that this compares with a 45 per cent average rate of success in embryo-transfer programmes in the world.
Dr Ramsammy explained that the local embryo-transfer programme utilises pure-bred embryos procured from the U. S. The GLDA is presently promoting four different breeds to support beef and milk production in Guyana. The four breeds are the Semintal, Brangus, Brahman and the Beefmaster.
This newspaper was further told that for this year, the GLDA established a target of 50 embryo transfers.

Surrogate heifers
Heifers from farmers in various parts of the country will be used as surrogate mothers.
“But the GLDA staff is also expecting to exceed the target and achieve approximately 100 such transfers. It is expected that as the staff of GLDA and the farmers gather more experience in the use of the technology, more transfers will be accomplished. Our target for 2014 will be 150 embryo transfers,” Dr Ramsammy posited.
Embryo transfer is a technology where the embryo (the initial stage of a new calf in the womb of a heifer) from a pure-bred animal is extracted and inserted into a surrogate mother, which will carry it until it is born.
The surrogate mother is usually of a lower quality breed. Dr Ramsammy explained that in Guyana’s programme, local heifers with mixed breed are used as surrogate mothers. They are utilised to carry pure-bred, high quality embryo from one of the four breeds mentioned earlier.
Guyana Times International was also told that the embryo-transfer programme is one of three strategic lines of action that the Agriculture Ministry is currently pursuing for breed improvement in livestock.