With the aim of contributing to revitalize and enhance the sheep industry in the region, the Catholic University of the Santísima Concepción (UCSC) began to execute the “Ñuble Sheep Development” project, financed by the Regional Government of Ñuble.
The initiative seeks to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the producers of Ninhue, Quirihue and San Nicolás, through a priority line focused on the agri-food industry and focused on the dissemination and transfer of technology in three crucial areas: health, reproductive and nutritional.
Ñuble is home to a total of 60,157 heads of sheep. However, the region faces significant challenges, as reflected by the high sheep mortality rate (26.1%, which exceeds the national average of 12.4%), both from diseases and climatic factors.
The project identifies a series of problems that have limited the optimal development of the sheep sector in Ñuble. These include poor pasture management, poor dissemination of health, nutritional and reproductive management programs, as well as a lack of implementation of technologies that allow genetic improvement of sheep. Furthermore, the region lacks artificial insemination procedures in sheep and producers face deficiencies in technical skills for sheep management and a low level of associativity that hinders collaboration and cost reduction.
“This project arises from the need of the Ñuble region to develop the sheep industry; It is an important production within peasant livestock farming, but so far it is not very developed, it always turns out to be something annexed. It arose from the need to disseminate technology to the countryside, through training and workshops, in order to improve the nutrition, reproduction and health aspects of the sheep,” commented Ivette Robayo, head of the project.
At the same time, it seeks to implement and transfer demonstration units through the delivery of sheep specimens, in order to allow local producers to generate genetic improvements in the breed of their livestock. ”We are working with the producers of the communes of San Nicolás, Quirihue and Ninhue, with the Prodesal and also those in charge of promotion of these communes, to attack genetic improvement and also the improvement of feeding and production of sheep,” said Robinson Sáez, project coordinator of the Vice-Rector’s Office for Environmental Relations at UCSC.
With a comprehensive focus on genetic improvement and technological transfer, the authority stressed that this initiative not only seeks to strengthen the productivity and competitiveness of producers, but also aims to revitalize a fundamental part of the agricultural fabric of the region. “From the lack of dissemination of health management programs to the lack of implementation of technologies for genetic improvement, each step of this project is directed towards a common objective: positively transforming the reality of sheep producers in the region,” he declared.
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