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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 1 JULY, 2018
FOOD & AGRICULTURE
The tragic plight and immense promise
of T&T
buffalypso were two driving themes of a recent UWI
conference on June 1 and 2 called: “Revitalizing the
buffalypso: Our national treasure.” Aunique collaboration
between the UWI School of VeterinaryMedicine (Faculty
of Medical Sciences) and the Faculty of Food and
Agriculture, the conference was a lively mix of current
academic research, veterinary medical insights and
successful water buffalo farming experiences grounded
in practical, real world, very profitable water buffalo
industries being run in many other nations right now.
Respected experts from both Italy and Venezuela
came to share their own experiences of successful water
buffalo farming. They spoke of the need to routinely
minimize the brucellosis disease through active, continual
herdmanagement, and the many delicious and profitable
spin-off food industries that can arise from water
buffalo farming, urging Trinidad to not squander a great
opportunity.
Film documentary arts were also part of the mix as
an early version of the film “The Last Stand” educated
conference participants about our valuable buffalypso
heritage, the food security role it can play, and the
problems facing buffalypso in T&T today. A work in
progress, the short film is being directed by Vishal
Rangersammy and Akilah Stewart, with Stewart also
writing the screenplay and producing the documentary.
Conference participants expressed grave concerns
about the future of the Mora Valley buffalypso herd at
Guayaguayare Road, Rio Claro. Some were also troubled
that a long history of State neglect might lead to decline
of even the small numbers of healthy buffalypso kept
at Aripo, and urged that we conserve and expand the
healthy stock.
Leela Rastogi, who has studied animal science,
breeding and genetics at McGill University, said at
the conference that T&T currently has 2,200 head of
buffalypso, down from 3,600 in 2009. The largest herd is
in Mora Valley, numbering an estimated 800 to 900-plus
animals deemed to be brucellosis-infected and roaming
freely through the beautiful green Mora Valley. But none
have been recently tested, so we don’t really know their
status. The last time some of them were tested was in
2013 by agriculture ministry workers for a project which
subsequently never got the necessary staff or resources
to carry through to meaningful results. So Mora Valley
buffalypsoes have been virtually abandoned by any
systematic agricultural policy to manage them well or
encourage good health. State-controlled buffalypsoes are
supposed to be managed by the Ministry of Agriculture
which inherited the herd after the demise of Caroni (1975)
Ltd in 2003.
From innovation to State neglect:
Dr Steve Bennett’s legacy ignored
TT veterinarian Dr Steve Bennett, a former jockey
and dedicated believer in local food security (he died
in 2011 at the age of 89), is the person whose vision,
passion and talent developed our unique buffalypso
International experts urge that we test all bu
preserve healthy animals, and activelymanage al
and interbreeding healthy stock with productiv
produce better quality animals for future food se
the lucrative dairy products sector). But theTTMi
Lands and Fisheries wants to get out of the buff
The agriculture ministry’s long-standing ‘test an
for brucellosis-infected buffalypso evades the fu
actively manage herds all the time for any healt
buffalo food industry to develop – something t
many different governments, has spectacularly
Local stakeholders want to prevent eradication
preserve valuable genetic stock, and are see
initiatives to assess, heal, finance and build a TT
to help supply good local sources of protein.
Who will pay for this, though? The current a
leadership says it will not, because, it says, the
skills, efficiencies, money and desire to do it. It s
decades ago, instead of allowing a once-healt
through two generations of official indifference
MoraValleyBuffalypso
to be slaughtered?
B Y S H E R E E N A N N A L I
breed through innovative selective breeding of several
hardy and productive imported Indian water buffalo
breeds during his time working at Caroni Limited in the
late 1950s and 1960s. Through his own selected breeding
and his improvement of their living, feeding, and health
conditions, Dr Bennett succeeded in creating a healthy,
well-maintained herd of unique buffalypso cows, calves
and bulls by 1967, a great starting point for a flourishing
local food sector.
But flash forward to today, some 60 years later, and
you can see the descendants of Steve Bennett’s once-
thriving buffalypso herd looking depleted and sadly
neglected, while other countries have made great strides
with buffalypsoes they imported from T&T decades ago.
How did it come to this?
As Vaneisa Baksh reported in the April 2018 issue of
UWI Today, some local buffalypsos contracted brucellosis
and this was detected in 1998. We don’t know for sure
where the disease came from; perhaps from infected
cattle imported from the US in the late 90s, or perhaps,
as veterinarian and livestock consultant Mahfouz Aziz
suggested at the conference, brucellosis came to these
shores much earlier, from infected cows imported via
Carriacou.
Baksh quoted an April 2017 status report on the
buffalypso industry published in Tropical Agriculture
(Trinidad), which used 2012 data and said: “A test and
slaughter brucellosis eradication programme, instituted
by the Government, resulted in the three largeWB (water
buffalo) producers selling their stock and closing theirWB
production operations. Based on annual reports, 3,255
WB were slaughtered due to a positive brucellosis status
from 1998 to 2008.”
Baksh reported that in 1999, the Animal Health
Division tried limited vaccination with the brucella
abortus vaccine strain RB51, which had been very
effective in cattle; but it did not seem to work on local
buffalypso. So the animals believed to be infected were
confined to the Mora Valley Estate in Rio Claro in 2003
and left to run wild. And not much more was done after
that.
The importance of herd management
The apparent failure of RB51 vaccination, however,
is not surprising if that is all that is done, according
to one expert. Valerie Ragan is Director of the Center
for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine at the
Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. In a
contribution to the UWI buffalypso conference booklet,
she says: “Vaccination alone will not rid this herd of
brucellosis, but may be an additional tool to interrupt
transmission. Herd management will play the most
important role.”
That means a whole range of measures, including
vaccination. A regular testing schedule for all the animals;
facilities for cows to calve individually or in small groups
(brucellosis is spread at time of abortion or calving, so
pregnant animals should be carefully managed); removal
and slaughter of animals that test positive for brucellosis;
