Tanzania: A project on pipeline to heighten rabbit meat consumption in Dodoma

By Valentine Oforo, Dodoma Residents of Dodoma in Tanzania will soon be exposed to positive health access by eating roasted rabbit meat following a move by the country’s famous entrepreneur youth group to invest into said rare business at the heart of the Capital City. Rabbit meat is rich in vitamins B12 and E, while also having a higher concentration of most minerals. One mineral it is lower in compared to other meats is sodium, making rabbit even more appealing to people with high blood pressure. Chairman of the Dodoma-based Tusumuke Youth Entrepreneurs Group (TYEG), Christopher Dioniz, unveiled that the they ‘were running processes to start conducting the rarely available services from across the country. “Most people in Tanzania are far away from understanding the health benefit of consuming rabbit meat, and that’s why consumption of the meat is still very low in Tanzania despite its potential,’ he said. He added, apart from just generating profit, the envisaged project focuses also to educate the public over the importance of eating rabbit meat, but also, the group will use the project to offer training on how to venture into rabbit keeping projects. “Currently, we’re continuing with efforts to get a comfortable pavilion at the newly –constructed Machinga complex market in Dodoma Capital city in readiness to start conducting the business,” he revealed. Dioniz explained that the plan was to prepare professionally and market the rabbit meat at a patriotic price of at least 15,000/- per kilogram in order to allow most people to enjoy the rare-healthier meat. He briefed that the group was running a major project for the production of rabbit, saying they keep varieties of rabbits, including the News Lands White, Giant and the British rabbits. “Though we are getting customers from various regions and some from outside the country, our prime focus is however to educate, sensitize and allow more Tanzanians to understanding the important of the rabbit meat, the move we believe will propel to fresh impetus to motivate for keeping and consumption of rabbit,” he expressed.   According to a special report from the Rabbit Project Planning Strategies for Developing Countries, in recent years there has been rising global awareness on the virtues of rabbit meat production in developing countries as an alternative means of alleviating world food shortages. This basic understanding is largely attributable to the rabbit's high rate of reproduction and early maturity, rapid growth rate, high genetic selection potential, efficient feed and land space utilization, limited competition with humans for similar foods and high quality nutritious meat,