Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) on Tuesday delivered a new chicken variety and a grass variety to the Department of Livestock Services (DLS) for release at farm levels.

The meat-producing chicken has been named as BLRI Meat Chicken-1 or Suborno and the saline-tolerant grass as BLRI Grass 5.

BLRI delivered the new technologies to the DLS marking the inauguration of the BLRI’s Annual Research Review Workshop and Technology Transfer 2022 held at its auditorium in Savar, Dhaka.

Fisheries and Livestock Minister S M Rezaul Karim said that apart from raising the production of livestock, the government’s aim is to bring quality perfection in meat, milk, fish and egg production.

He said the ministry and its agencies have to play an important role in achieving the sustainable development goals.

“Once our goal was to increase output, now our goal is not just to raise production but also to ensure quality of food to attain sustainable development,” he said.

The minister said the daily milk intake per person in the country was only 17 milliliters in 1972, and now it rose to about 208.61 milliliters.

Availability of meat per person was then only 4.97 grams which has increased to 147.84 grams now while accessibility of eggs per person increased from only 4.0 a year to 136.1 now.

He said that research played the key role in achieving such development.

He lauded the role of BLRI in research and urged them to disseminate their technologies across the country through the DLS.

Meanwhile, BLRI formally delivered the chicken and grass varieties to DLS at the programme.

A BLRI official said Suborono would grow to 1.0 kg in just eight weeks. It would be a good alternative to local varieties like Sonali while it is a short-duration variety, he said.

He said a bird would take 2.0 to 2.4 kgs of feed in two months which is very competitive while it also could cope with the Bangladeshi environment.

He said private poultry companies Paragon and Aftab would supply the day-old-chicks (DOCs) of Suborno.

However, the newly developed grass BLRI Grass 5 has been released for coastal regions as it could tolerate saline up to 11.5 dS/m, said Dr Biplab Kumar Ray, principal scientific officer of BLRI.

He said the variety would grow well in summer – from March to October – while it would also give a medium production in the winter when salinity rises above 20 dS/m in places.

The high-yielding grass would help the coastal farmers rear healthy cattle as the new grass gives 264 tonnes of production annually, he said.

Director general of BLRI Dr SM Jahangir Hossain chaired the programme while the fisheries and livestock secretary Dr Nahid Rashid, additional secretary ATM Mustafa Kamal, director general of DLS Dr Manzoor Mohammad Shahzada also spoke, among others.

BLRI’s director (research) Dr Nasreen Sultana delivered the welcome speech.

The two-day workshop is expected to review a total of 73 research programmes conducted by BLRI in financial year 2021-22.

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