Farmers preserve animals for the different reasons regardless of their poor performances, this has greatly affected animal productivity. Climate smart project titled’’ Resilience Pathways to Sustainable Intensification and Climate-Smart Beef Production in the Dry lands of Uganda (RESIBEEF)’’ is on board to solve issues of genetics and cattle feeding.
Genetic breeding and nutrition are key aspects in animal production , understanding different breeds of animals and their feeding resources is very vital because this helps in understanding the gaps why they are not performing to the expectations and address them accordingly.
This project is going to help the researchers to develop a sustainable feeding packages based on the locally available resources which includes grasses and plant residuals to ensure good performance regardless of the weather and location of animals .
‘’There is a common knowledge that animals feed on dried hay during dry season yet they perform badly during wet season and thus calling for mind set change. ‘’ Said Mr Kato Husain a researcher under animal nutrition.
Dr. Brian Bbabigumira the project PI organized an inception meeting in Katakwi on 17-18 June 2026 with the aim of bringing all the stakeholders together for the common goal of understanding of the objectives of the project which included, animal genetic breeding, nutrition and capacity building. This acted as a road map and kept everyone aligned.
Dr. Robert Onzima a specialist on animal breeding genetics and a Lecture at MUNI university elaborated that capacity building is a must for sustainability of all research activities and gave a live example of all scientists in a room who were in their late forty (40) hence capacity building in all aspects is important, ‘’I’m glad that a project has two Master students on animal production’’.
The meeting was so inspiring and informative due to its selected key actors where researchers were directly interacting with people from community, this ensures sustainability of technology because the two learn from each other and research becomes a reality. He added.
The veterinary Officer Serere Dr Collins Amonya , appreciated the project and said that, the project is covering key farmers challenges like animal nutrition, a farmer is empowered to improve on the indigenous knowledge of feeding animals and encouraged them to fully participate towards its implementation in order to achieve the government’s vision of 2040.