At least 40 students have graduated as veterinary doctors from the University of Rwanda’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
The intake was between 2016 and 2022.
The graduation comes at a time when the government putting in place measures to ensure that all veterinarians in Rwanda comply with the country’s professional standards.
Those to be guided by the new government measures include veterinary pharmacies, abattoirs, private veterinaries, veterinarians employed by non-government organisations and the government.
The Rwandan government has noted that the most common mistakes in the veterinary field are made by veterinarians who do not have contracts, those who do not have valid operating licenses to practice, and those who are not authorised by the government to mix fertilisers with veterinary drugs.
The Rwandan Council of Veterinary Doctors (RCVD) has also started auditing all professional institutions offering veterinary courses or programmes in Rwanda in order to check their compliance and operational standards.
The government and RCVD has also increased visits to veterinary institutions where they exchange notes with managers and staff members on the time frame of addressing weaknesses and implementing recommendations.
Meanwhile, the Rwanda Livestock Master Plan has targeted to double pig meat production to 67 076 tonnes by 2022, an increase from 19 945 tonnes in 2016/17.
Currently, 21 percent of the available pork comes from pigs in the country.
Substitution of pork for domestic red meat consumption would reduce domestic meat prices and enable an increase in meat export, according to Rwanda’s Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation phase 4 (PSTA 4). The latter outlines priority investments in agriculture and estimates required resources for the agriculture sector for the period 2018-2024. I
“The demand for pork could not be satisfied if farmers are still rearing traditional pigs which do not provide high yields,” Jean Claude Shirimpumu, a pig farmer and chairperson of the Rwanda Pig Farmers’ Association, said.
