Former BBC station to be renovated to boost SAA’s institutional capacity

Former BBC station to be renovated to boost SAA’s institutional capacity

07-September-2017
In its effort to continue to improve its services to the farmers, local farming community and the public in general, especially in national animal production and health, the Seychelles Agricultural Agency (SAA) has signed a contract for the renovation of the former BBC building at Grand Anse, Mahé.
The document was signed by Finley Racombo, chief executive of SAA and Thomas Larue on behalf of TRL Construction, the successful bidder for the project.

The main objective of renovating the building is to develop institutional capacity for timely disease diagnosis to improve the health of food producing animals and enhance veterinary services contribution to increase local meat production.
The laboratory services will not only serve for the timely diagnosis of animal diseases but also for food safety analysis in the future.
It will include the following laboratories: serology, parasitology, bacteriology, molecular biology, haematology, sample preparation, entomology and post mortem lab. These will more or less enhance veterinary services by building its capacity for diagnosis of animal diseases using nuclear techniques.
There has been an urgent request and necessity to intensify local pork production, hence the building will also house an artificial insemination (AI) unit which will focus more on reproduction in pigs, since SAA has always been the sole importer and provider of genetic material for pig production in the country.
Over the years SAA has encountered various challenges to introduce new blood lines on time, to maintain a proper national pig breeding programme. Consequently, this has hindered the development of the sector with farmers being obliged to produce their own breeding stock which besides increasing the risks of unwanted inherited characteristics, has resulted in economic losses among others.

Moreover, the project will also include a Plant Tissue Culture Lab to research on new methods of reproducing local root crops, fruits, especially banana, which have potential to serve as staple diet for Seychelles beside rice. This will also help to further support the national plant conservation efforts because research results can be used to produce more plants to distribute to farmers in a shorter time, compared to traditional methods of plant propagation, such as planting of seeds, cuttings or divisions. It will also encourage research on more efficient propagation methods as well as mutation breeding.
TRL, the contractor, will start work in the interior of the building so that once this is completed, the specialised equipment purchased under an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) project, can be properly housed while work on the outside is being completed.
The whole renovation work will include an additional structure to be used as an insectorium to assist the Ministry of Health with its insect control programme.
The project, including the insectorium, is financed by the Livestock Trust Fund (LTF) of the Seychelles government.

http://www.nation.sc/article.html?id=255568