การพัฒนาระบบการผสมเทียมโคเนื้อสำหรับเกษตรกรรายย่อยในจังหวัดน่าน

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Abstract

Beef cattle is one of the important economic animals of Thailand. The beef farms in Thailand have been developing in order to support continually increasing demands for meat consumption and exportation. However, most of them particularly in the rural and border area were small scale. Currently, beef cattle number in Nan province is 47,024 with 7,597 beef farmers. The major concern of beef cattle farming in Nan is low productivity and delayed days open, resulting in decreasing numbers of calved born in farm. In addition, to improve the high quality of meat production, the service of an artificial insemination (AI) with frozen semen derived from the high genetic merit bulls is needed. However, an insufficient number of inseminators and AI services has been a bottleneck problem to the improvement scheme of beef cattle production. The project entitled “The improvement of artificial insemination system for smallholder beef cattle production in Nan Province” aimed to
1) develop an AI service system for beef cattle of livestock AI volunteers through process of people participation in Nan province
2) develop and enhance knowledge and skills of livestock AI volunteers in Nan province in order to
3) solve the infertility and prolonged days open in beef cattle
4) establish database management of beef cattle in Nan province
5) to develop the farmers’ leaders in the beef cattle farming system and capable of transferring knowledge to other farmers as well as initiating learning centers for beef cattle production.

This project has been carried out in cooperation with the government sectors including Nan Provincial Livestock Office and District Livestock Office from May 2020 to Aug 2021 in target area including 15 subdistricts of 9 districts as follows: Na Muen, Mueang Nan, Mae Charim, Ban Luang, Tha Wang Pha, Wiang Sa, Chiang Klang, Santi Suk and Phu Phiang.

This project was carried out using the Community-Based Research approach starting from organizing a forum to exchange ideas from all stakekholders including the research-driven network, educators and the private sectors related to the beef cattle farming in Nan province; clarifying the roles of livestock AI volunteers; designing beef cattle AI services management and scheme; empowering knowledge and skills for livestock AI volunteers development; initiating and monitoring the development of beef cattle farming; and development of the AI services and the livestock AI volunteers. As the results of these processes, thirty-six innovators who capable of defining and solving the problems systematically including 24 farmers’ leaders and 12 artificial inseminators were engaged and functioned in the target area. Farmers groups established learning areas to improve beef cattle farming in order to upgrading genetic merit of beef cows from local mixed breed to the crossbred Brahman for producing quality meat using AI technology with frozen semen derived from the high genetic merit bulls. Several training workshops organized by School of Agriculture Resources, Chulalongkorn University (CUSAR) to transfer the knowledge, i.e. AI management, reproductive management, herd-health management, and feeding management. The specific management in this area were also developed by farmers’ insights. Regarding the beef cattle AI services management and scheme, the network of artificial inseminator and AI services management operated by the farmer’s leaders are able to cover AI services area in Nan province, resulting in 518 inseminations in the duration of December 2020 to August 2021. The Nan beef cattle production development group comprising educational institutions (Chulalongkorn University and Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna Nan), government agencies (Nan Provincial Livestock Office, the District Livestock and other governor officials, Provincial Agricultural Extension Office, Agricultural Land Reform Office, Office of Nan Provincial Farmers, Subdistrict Administrative Organization, Provincial Administrative Organization), and farmer group was established.

In addition, a mobile application as a tool for generate database systems and supporting the workflow of livestock AI volunteers was developed to drive the improvement of beef cattle farming. The overall success of this project has created a mechanism for developing beef cattle farming for smallholder beef cattle production in Nan Province, developing a AI networking system and, developing a group of farmers’ leader. The result in this project is in the process to transfer as the function plan of local government organization as well as development plan for beef cattle farming at the provincial level. This leads to the sustainable development of beef cattle farming that can enhance production improvement and generate income for farmers in the future.