RESEARCH BY VISITING POLISH RABBIT RESEARCHER MAY IMPACT RURAL FAMILIES ABROAD
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dr. Marian Brzozowski will be in South Texas and available for interviews until March 20. For additional information call Dr. Steven Lukefahr at (512) 593-3699.
(KINGSVILLE, February 26, 1997) -- Rabbits, regarded mostly as pets or Easter holiday symbols in the United States, have much more value in Poland -- an escape for many families from the poverty trap that plagues rural Polish districts, according to Polish rabbit researcher Dr. Marian Brzozowski.
Brzozowski, a member of the faculty of the Warsaw Agricultural University and consultant for the private, volunteer organization Heifer Project International (HPI), has been conducting post-doctoral research at A&M-Kingsville on meat rabbit production since September. Brzozowski and Dr. Steven Lukefahr, a professor in the Department of Animal and Wildlife Science who conducts ongoing rabbit research, are collaborating to ultimately help small farmers in Poland improve living conditions by raising meat rabbits.
Rabbits, Brzozowski said, have become a partial solution to easing Poland's poverty situation because they are relatively inexpensive to raise, are hardy animals, do not compete for the same foods humans eat and can be managed on relatively small plots of land. Rabbit meat in some European countries has been traditionally as popular, if not more popular, than chicken or beef in terms of human consumption, Lukefahr added.
Nearly 10 percent of the farm land in Poland, organized into state farms under communism, have been divided up and given to "farm owners," according to HPI reports. Families receiving the land, however, are not adequately prepared to take over private farms, Brzozowski said. Many do not have plows or livestock to help maximize the use of the land, exist on a diet of bread and potatoes and live in homes where several generations reside under the same roof.
HPI officials have implemented projects, including one oriented toward meat rabbit production, to assist rural families.
Brzozowski and his colleagues from Warsaw Agricultural University help support the HPI rabbit project through extension efforts, providing technical assistance to Polish families by teaching them about meat rabbit nutrition, breeding practices and how to protect meat rabbits against disease. They minister primarily to the poorest regions in Kielce and Radom districts.
"The idea is to show them how they can feed themselves;" Brzozowski said, "not give them the fish but the pole to fish with."
Families are taught how they can collect timber from which planks are made to build rabbit cages, for example, and how rabbits can be fed using greens taken from the garden or scraps from the kitchen. Since 1992, approximately 5,175 families have benefitted by receiving and raising rabbits as a source of food and income on small farms, according to HPI data.
It was through this effort that Brzozowski met Lukefahr in Poland in 1993 when Lukefahr was evaluating the HPI rabbit program as a consultant. They maintained contact in the ensuing years while Brzozowski was looking for a source of support to do research in the United States.
Lukefahr was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant in the spring of 1996 to support Brzozowski's post-doctoral research program at A&M-Kingsville. Brzozowski arrived in September hoping that research conducted here would yield results that would further help his efforts in Poland.
Similar to the HPI rabbit project, the A&M-Kingsville research program, under Lukefahr's direction, is also focused largely on backyard meat production at the family level while also serving the interests of area youth.
Brzozowski's six-month project, scheduled to conclude in March, has largely entailed statistical analyses of rabbit research data from Poland and assistance in A&M-Kingsville rabbit research activities. The latter has included joint paper publication, attendance at professional animal science meetings, visits to other rabbit research centers and commercial farms and conducting seminars based on his experience in Poland.
"Part of being a rabbit specialist is knowing rabbits, but conducting research and publicizing research is also important," Lukefahr said. "Any time two rabbit specialists get together it's always a win-win situation.
"We're doing a lot of research in putting together an inexpensive diet to feed rabbits, diets that are from forages that we can grow locally," he said. Even though some of the forage species studied are not found in Poland, he added, the rationale and procedures used in the research trials can be adapted using forages native to Poland.
One of the experiments Brzozowski has conducted with Lukefahr has involved the feeding of yucca plant extract to rabbits. Saponins, a chemical compound found in yucca, may increase rabbits' growth rate and decrease the amount of food they need to grow, thereby offering a more cost-effective, nutritional approach to feeding, according to Brzozowski.
"Previous studies have tended to show that there are beneficial effects in improving growth rate and feed conversion," Brzozowski said. Similar studies have been done with poultry as well as rabbits, but only a small scale, he added.
Saponins are also found in alfalfa which is available in Poland. Brzozowski said he hopes to prepare and present the study results at a 1998-99 symposium in Poland.
Another objective of Brzozowski's visit is to take back to Poland knowledge he has gained about the role 4-H plays as a teaching tool. Since 1989 when Poland started to be open to the world, Brzozowski explained, ideas from the West were introduced. One such example was 4-H.
A&M-Kingsville faculty currently assist about 100 families in the county, Lukefahr said, who raise rabbits as 4-H or FFA projects.
Through such programs, children learn about animal science and biology, Lukefahr said. It helps to dispel what he coins as "the Easter bunny syndrome" and create awareness that rabbits are an important livestock species around the world.
Brzozowski intends to do his part to expand the idea in Poland.
-TAMUK-
- Mary McAdam