Dr David Norris TO WATCH DR DAVID NORRIS WORKING WITH HIS CHICKENS IS TO CATCH SIGHT OF A SCIENTIFIC INTEREST BORDERING ON OBSESSION. He laughs a lot. He’s an easy man to be around. Yet his focus is very firmly on his chickens. ‘All these are indigenous African chickens,’ he says, indicating the scruffy scratching poultry in several pens on the School of Agriculture and Environmental Science’s experimental farm not far from the Turfloop campus of the University of Limpopo. ‘Those on that side are naked-necked chickens, and they’re found all over South Africa. These here – the black and white speckled ones – are called Venda chickens.’ Nothing much to look at, these indigenous chickens. A few of the roosters have most of their tail feathers missing, and the naked-necked bunch seems vaguely reminiscent of vultures. Yet they have one huge strength. They’re adapted to local conditions. In other words, they have developed physiological and anatomical systems that make any exotic breeds look positively puny. ‘The imported breeds are especially engineered for high egg or meat production,’ explains Norris, ‘but in Southern African conditions they need high inputs – inoculations, special feeds, and so on – and mortality rates are high. In other words, they’re expensive much too expensive for local conditions. On the other hand, the indigenous chickens represent a huge genetic resource. If we’re serious about poverty alleviation, let’s work with the local stock. That’s the thinking behind my research.’ Although an estimated 75% of South African chicken production is from local breeds, most scientists are marginalising the indigenous strains. But not Norris, who’s a quantitative geneticist at Turfloop. The initial phase of his research was to do a ‘phenotypic characterisation’ study that examined such elements as size, growth rate, feeding requirements, egg size and output. ‘Because of the wholesale neglect of the past,’ says Norris, ‘we know nothing of the respective breeds. So it’s been important to carry out genetic characterisation that begins to match the external characteristics with the genetic types. It’s important for another
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reason as well. Conservation. We are identifying and conserving African breeds that have been around for a very long time but that have almost become extinct.’ Norris was born and grew up in Botswana, doing his undergraduate studies at the university in Gaberone. He then moved to the University of Reading (in the United Kingdom) and Michigan State University (USA) where he completed his master’s and PhD degrees respectively. His doctoral thesis dealt with ‘the dominance effects in genetic variation’. Norris has also done special courses in quantitative genetics in the United States (Michigan) and Canada, and he taught for a period of two years at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee. ‘I really loved the Deep South,’ he recalls. ‘It was so much warmer than Michigan or Canada – much more suitable for someone from Southern Africa.’ Norris returned to Botswana in 2000 and made the move to Turfloop a year later. Asked why, he replies: ‘I loved the opportunity to combine teaching and research that Turfloop offered.’ And the marginalised indigenous chickens all over Southern Africa have benefited. Norris has established linkages with the University of Venda, as well as tertiary institutions in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Relationships are also in the pipeline with Swaziland and Botswana. ‘These links enable us to exchange information and research findings on indigenous poultry. I have also made personal visits. I’m now looking for funding to more formally establish the international interactions to cover the whole of the SADC region. This will enrich our understanding of a significant regional resource and improve its utility in our fight against poverty and under-development.’ Next step in Norris’s indigenous chicken research is a programme of selective breeding to improve the productivity of the chickens without damaging their adaptability to the environment. At the same time, a genuine African livestock resource will be conserved and used as a realistic alternative to much more vulnerable and expensive breeds imported from America and Europe.
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