Member profile
Dr. Godfrey Magoke
Organization:
Tanzania Veterinary Laboratory Agency (TVLA)
Country:
United Republic of Tanzania
Field(s) of expertise:
I am working on:
Aflatoxin and mycotoxin contamination of village grains (cereals and nuts), risk factors, impacts and mitigation strategies.
Dr. Godfrey Magoke
Dr. Godfrey Z. Magoke (PhD), Tanzania Veterinary Laboratory Agency (TVLA).
I propose additional objectives below;
-Understand local knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and practices towards livestock rearing activities to identify areas for improvement and for formulation of locally adaptive technologies.
-Create awareness to practices that are adaptive to global climatic changes of weather.
-Pioneer accessibility to cost-effective veterinary inputs and extension services.
Overview of practices and experiences;
In Tanzania, population growth in towns and cities has resulted in high demand for chicken meat and eggs that has attracted increased investment in small-scale, backyard production of commercial chickens (layers and broilers) for income generation. This production system is prone to several challenges ranging from housing and nutrition issues to infectious diseases that are largely implicated to inadequate biosecurity and poor hygiene and sanitation in chicken rearing environments.
The rearing of village chickens is commonly practiced in majority of Tanzania rural areas. Village chickens are mainly reared through free-range system with no to little input in terms of disease management. One of the major constraints to village chicken productivity in Tanzania is high mortalities resulting from Newcastle disease virus infections. Through the Australian funded ACIAR project we were able to reverse the trend through mass Newcastle vaccination campaigns in one of the districts resulting to high number of chickens and eggs for household consumption and sale.
The increased demand for pork meat has also resulted to intensified small-scale, backyard pig rearing activities in urban and peri-urban areas in Tanzania. In some parts of rural Tanzania pigs are reared under free range system, and in those areas there is also a high prevalence of zoonotic infections with pig tapeworms due to poor hygiene and low use of latrines.
In Tanzania, majority of cattle are traditional and are mainly reared in villages by individual farmers and pastoralists. However, high demand of milk in towns and cities has led to increased rearing of cross-bred exotic cattle in farms and in the backyard of urban and peri-urban settlements for commercial milk production.
Due to intensive rearing, biosecurity issues and low disease resistance, exotic milking cattle are frequently susceptible to a number of disease pathogens.