A.K. Kahi

Sustainable Community-Based Organizations for the Genetic Improvement of Livestock in Developing Countries

Livestock industries in developing countries face numerous constraints that have often hampered the establishment and sustainability of national genetic-improvement programmes. One major inadequacy in a number of programmes previously developed was that livestock owners were not taken into account in decision making and ownership of improvement initiatives. No matter how much effort is put into financial and technological support, the eventual survival of improvement programmes depends on whether the farmers understood and agreed with the objective of the projects. Otherwise, programmes tend to fade away as soon as the development agencies leave. Community ownership of genetic-improvement programmes has been suggested as a potentially sustainable alternative. In this paper, the establishment and sustainability of community-based organizations for the genetic improvement of livestock (CBOGIL) are discussed with reference to some successful community-based genetic-improvement initiatives in different livestock species.

Analysis of production objectives and breeding practices of dairy goats in Kenya

Production objectives and breeding practices of smallholder households participating in dairy goat breeding projects were analysed in relation to their ability to bring about sustainable genetic improvement in the dairy goat flocks in Kenya. A stratified survey involving 311 goat keepers in 4 project sites was used. This employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods to get a holistic view of dairy goats, and take into account the full array of contributions of dairy goats to the smallholder households. Milk production and sales of breeding stock were high priority functions for the objective to create a financial buffer. The breeding objective traits that farmers perceived as being of primary importance were milk yield, growth rate, body size, fertility and disease tolerance. There were logical trade-offs in the choice of these traits by farmers. Female dairy goats were mainly culled due to old age, poor fertility, small body size and poor health. Farmers did not place a large significance on unsatisfactory milk performance when culling female goats, mainly due to the very small production size and the high demand existing for breeding animals. Factors affecting milk yield and flock size presented satisfied a P < 0.1 significance level. The performance levels of dairy goats were mainly influenced by breeding strategies and the resource availability at the farm level. The optimisation of genotype x environment interactions remains the biggest challenge given the objectives set by the farmer.

Beef Production in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands of Kenya Constraints and Prospects for Research and Development

Most of Kenya (80%) is classified as arid and semi-arid. The climatic conditions in these regions are so harsh for crops that only livestock production can thrive. These regions provide the bulk of beef consumed in the country, which is produced via two main systems: large-scale dairy-meat commercial ranching and small-scale dairy-meat production. In both these systems, production is pasture-based. The animals kept are the highly adapted indigenous zebu (small East African zebu and Boran) or exotic beef (for example, Hereford, Simmental, Charolais, Angus) breeds and their crosses kept mainly by the commercial ranchers. Development of the beef industry in Kenya has lagged behind other agricultural enterprises due to policies that were unfavourable towards arid and semi-arid lands and the historically poor infrastructure development in the rangelands. It is concluded that there is potential for beef production in Kenya, given the available genetic and physical resources, although this potential can be achieved only if government policies are introduced to accelerate development in the rangelands and empower both the larger producers and pastoralists to increase their production.

Genetic and phenotypic parameters and annual trends for growth and fertility traits of Charolais and Hereford beef cattle breeds in Kenya

This study estimated genetic and phenotypic parameters and annual trends for growth and fertility traits of Charolais and Hereford cattle in Kenya. Traits considered were birth weight (BW, kg), pre-weaning average daily gain (ADG, kg/day) and weaning weight (WW, kg); calving interval (CI, days) and age at first calving (AFC, days). Direct heritability estimates for growth traits were 0.36 and 0.21; 0.25 and 0.10; 0.23 and 0.13 for BW, ADG and WW in Charolais and Hereford, respectively. Maternal heritability estimates were 0.11 and 0.01; 0.18 and 0.00; 0.17 and 0.17 for BW, ADG and WW in Charolais and Hereford, respectively. Direct-maternal genetic correlations ranged between −0.46 and 1.00; −0.51 and −1.00; −0.47 and −0.39 for BW, ADG and WW in Charolais and Hereford, respectively. Genetic correlations ranged from −0.99 to unity and −1.00 to unity for growth and fertility traits respectively. Prospects for improvement of growth and fertility traits exist.

Effect of parental genotypes and paternal heterosis on litter traits in crossbred goats

The effect of parental genotype and paternal heterosis on litter size (LS), total litter birth weight (TLW) and average litter birth weight (ALW) was analysed utilizing data from a crossbreeding programme involving the exotic German Fawn goats and local Katjang goats in Malaysia. In this study, these traits were regarded as traits of the litter to consider the effect of service sire genotype. The results revealed that LS was significantly influenced by the genotype of sire. The genotypes of sire and dam had significant effects on TLW and ALW. Estimates of crossbreeding parameter showed significant and negative influence of paternal heterosis on TLW and ALW while there was no significant effect of paternal heterosis on LS. The results of this study stress the need to reconsider the use of local males in the tropics.

Economic implications of using Japanese Black sires carrying recessive genes associated with genetic defects.

The objective of this study was to calculate cumulative discounted expressions (CDE) for Japanese Black sires carrying a single defective allele in a herd by applying the gene-flow method to investigate the expression pattern of homozygous recessive genotype and to evaluate the monetary loss of using these sires. A single biallelic locus was considered with A representing the dominant allele and a representing the recessive allele. The gene-flow method was modified to consider the fitness of homozygous recessive genotype. Input parameters representing a typical situation in a Japanese Black cattle herd were used to calculate the CDE and the loss of using carrier sires. The effects of initial allele frequency and fitness on the CDE were determined for Aa and AA sires. The CDE of Aa sires were larger than those of AA sires under all initial allele frequencies and fitness. The difference in the CDE between using Aa and AA sires was largest when fitness was 0 (lethal recessive condition). The differences in the loss between Aa and AA sires were larger with increasing initial allele frequencies in lethal recessive condition. Applying the method used in this study to defects reported in Japanese Black cattle and with a population size of 628 000, the difference in the loss between using Aa and AA sires was US

Realities in breed improvement programmes for dairy goats in East and Central Africa

48 575 800 and US

Evaluation and effectiveness of breeding and production services for dairy goat farmers in Kenya.

74 418 000 in the case of Band-3 and Claudin-16 deficiencies, respectively. The approach used in this study could be applied to other genetic defects in different breeds and species.