S07 AF Nov Dec 2021 Breeding & Genetics_Layout 1 08/11/2021 10:40 Page 25
improvements long into the future,” says Aynalem Haile, a scientist specialising in small ruminant breeding with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). In 2009, this approach was brought to Ethiopia by ICARDA in partnership with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Austria’s University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), and the Ethiopian National Agricultural Research System. Haile and a team of scientists, students and national extension agents started by working with 500 households in four communities. First, they studied how farmers were managing breeding, how many male animals the communities had and how they were used communally. They identified a major problem – there were hardly any male animals and the main reason for that was financial problems. Farmers were selling their fastest growing animals and the useless ones would be the ones left for breeding. In order to tackle this issue, the scientists helped the communities to formalise their traditional communal arrangement into a cooperative structure, and provided revolving funds for communal use. Once a
www.africanfarming.net
Image Credit: Adobe Stock
LIVESTOCK
The programme ensured the genuine participation of livestock keepers in the design and implementation of sheep and goat breeding.
healthy breeding stock was established, they helped the communities define their breeding objectives. Then researchers helped the community develop a breeding structure – addressing how males and female livestock should be managed, how to use rams communally and the process for selecting animals for breeding. This data was then used by the scientists to estimate ‘breeding values’, that is, which animals should mate in order to best achieve the breeding objectives set by the community. Ten years on, the programme has reached 3,200 households in 40 villages at a fraction of the cost of introducing exotic animals or
nucleus schemes. The programme has also supported farmers to establish 35 formal breeders’ cooperatives. Community-based breeding sites have been visited by one of Ethiopia’s former prime ministers as well as a number of high-ranking ministers. It has become the Ethiopian Government’s strategy of choice for sheep and goats. It’s been incorporated into the country’s livestock master plan, and has received a US$560,000 investment from the World Bank and investment from regional government authorities to upscale the approach across the country. www.ilri.org h
African Farming - November/December 2021 25
