To harness genetic diversity to improve goat productivity in Africa, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is testing the open data kit (ODK) in Ethiopia as a tool to collect baseline data on production systems and phenotypic characterization of goats. It will also be tested in Cameroon.

The project is led by the Biosciences eastern and central Africa – International Livestock Research Institute Hub and financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

“ODK has the potential to transform the way we deliver our research, through smarter data management and use” – Tadelle Dessie, project coordinator

‘ODK Collect‘ is an open source program to collect questionnaire information. It immediately digitizes data for analysis, allows for remote monitoring of the collection progress, and facilitates the gathering of data, eliminating the need for paper surveys and therefore significantly reducing survey times. In this test-employment, the ODK Collect program was installed on Samsung Galaxy SII smartphones and the questionnaires were written in xml format which are subsequently saved to the phone’s device memory.

The system allows users to ask questions with a predetermined ‘if‐then’ logic system, relying on answers to previous questions. The program also supports the incorporation of GPS points, photos, videos, bar codes, and sound bites as attachments to surveys or as the basis of the questionnaire responses.

The results recorded on the phones are sent to ILRI servers in Addis Ababa and Nairobi where the ODK ‘Aggregate‘ tool is used for analysis.

More on the goat project

This week the G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture takes place in the USA.

Filed under: Animal Breeding, BecA, Biodiversity, Biotech, CRP37, East Africa, Ethiopia, Goats Tagged: data, ODK, openagdata, opendata

Download Guinea report

Although livestock play a central role in rural development in West Africa, traditional livestock systems are in general characterized by high mortality rates, low reproductive rates and low offtake rates. Furthermore, the presence of trypanosome-infected tsetse flies in the subhumid and humid areas seriously holds back the potential for livestock production. The region’s endemic ruminant livestock, however, are highly adapted to the local environmental conditions and are able to survive and remain productive in tsetse-infested areas with minimal inputs where other breeds succumb to disease and other hardships. The conservation and improvement of these native African breeds have potential to greatly improve the livelihoods of West Africa’s livestock keepers.

A project named ‘Sustainable Management of Globally Significant Endemic Ruminant Livestock in West Africa’ (or ‘PROGEBE‘, an acronym of the French version of the project title) aims to develop models for community-based conservation and management of critical habitats for three endemic ruminant livestock breeds—N’Dama cattle, Djallonké sheep and West Africa Dwarf goats—and to develop strategies for preserving their unique genetic traits/habitats.

Download Mali report

Two research reports authored by Karen Marshall, Maria Ejlertsen and Jane Poole describe the results of a 12-month retrospective survey for estimating livestock demographic parameters of endemic ruminant livestock kept by smallholders in selected sites in Guinea and Mali. The demographic parameters estimated included natural rates, such as parturition, abortion and mortality rates (prolificacy and mortality rates), as well as management rates, such as offtake and intake rates.

One of the reports — Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa: Estimate of livestock demographic parameters in Guinea — was released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in January 2013.  The other report — Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa: Estimates of livestock demographic parameters in Mali — was released in December 2012.

The following are among the key recommendations given by these research reports.

• Interventions to lower natural mortality rates should be prioritized and achieved mainly by changes in management practices in the short- to medium-terms to, for example, better control disease and improve feed. In the longer term (20–50 years) it may be possible to reduce mortality by genetically improving disease resistance of the animals through breeding programs.

• Interventions to improve other demographic parameters could as well be worth prioritizing, namely, age at first parturition, parturition interval, prolificacy rates and abortion rates. Again, this should be achieved mainly through changes in management practices in the short-term, such as improved feeding, and longer term genetic improvement.

• Build capacity to improve awareness of traditional and alternate management and breeding practices and the effects these have on livestock production and productivity.

• Conduct a modelling study using the demographic parameters estimated here, combined with other data from household surveys, livestock census and literature to determine the expected impact of potential PROGEBE interventions (such as improved health care, feeding and/or animal genetic improvement) on livestock production over different time horizons.

The findings of these surveys indicate that N’Dama cattle, Djallonké sheep and West Africa dwarf goats are the prominent breeds in PROGEBE’s Guinea and Mali project areas and suggest that some level of controlled breeding is being applied in most herds/flocks, primarily through sire selection (although these may or may not be implemented with a specific breeding objective in mind). The results indicate considerable scope for improvement of demographic parameters through improved herd/flock husbandry management in the short term, and improved breeding strategies in the long term.

Download the research report – Guinea

Download the research report – Mali

See all reports from the PROGEBE project

Filed under: Africa, Animal Breeding, Animal Production, Biodiversity, Books and chapters, Cattle, Countries, CRP37, Goats, Guinea, ILRI, Livestock, Mali, Research, Sheep, West Africa Tagged: PROGEBE

Ethiopian woman churning butter the traditional way (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

A new study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations argues that to succeed, livestock breed conservation efforts must empower women.

‘Women livestock keepers worldwide must be recognized as the major actors in efforts to arrest the decline of indigenous breeds, crucial for rural food security and animal genetics, [the] new FAO study argues.

‘Yet women’s contribution to indigenous livestock breeding and conservation is poorly documented and undervalued, the study Invisible Guardians: Women Manage Livestock Diversity says.

‘Of the 600 million poor livestock keepers in the world, around two-thirds are women, whose men often have migrated to the cities. Women stay at home with the children and live by cultivating crops and keeping indigenous small stock such as chickens or goats, and perhaps a cow.

‘Indigenous breeds are adapted to often harsh local conditions, are disease resistant, thrive on easy to obtain local fodder or forage and generally take care of themselves. Such breeds may not produce a lot of meat, milk or eggs but they are low maintenance for run-off-their-feet poor rural women.

‘Such breeds are also a repository of irreplaceable genetic material. They often have traits such as disease-resistance that can be important for breeding programmes. And in a world threatened by climate change, breeds that are resistant to drought, extreme heat or tropical diseases are of major potential importance.

‘Problems may arise when projects or national authorities try to introduce exotic breeds or cross-breeds to try to increase production of meat, milk and eggs to meet booming worldwide food demand. These animals need special and often expensive feed, wait to be fed rather than foraging on their own, need expensive veterinary care and cannot survive prolonged drought or other extreme weather.

‘Poor rural livestock keepers, and women in particular, are often unable to obtain the inputs or spare the time needed to raise these animals successfully. In case such breed introductions and production intensification are successful and livestock becomes an important source of cash income, women often lose their role as livestock keepers.

‘The advantages of indigenous breeds have been long known. But the FAO study asserts that the role of women in safeguarding and defending indigenous breeds and improving their genetics through careful breeding has not been appreciated.

Women are the guardians of livestock diversity, says study author Ilse Köhler-Rollefson.

‘Meanwhile, according to the latest figures, about 22 percent of the world’s livestock breeds are still classified as being at risk of extinction, although breed population figures are often unreported or out of date, making the true state of livestock diversity difficult to estimate.

‘Countries are beginning to put programmes into place to reverse the alarming decline in the numbers of indigenous livestock breeds. The new study suggests that these initiatives will not be successful if women’s role as keepers of indigenous livestock is not taken into account. Women have to be the central players in such conservation campaigns, the study says, and to ensure that they are, more groundwork needs to be done.

The report recommends that gender issues are made central to projects, programmes and policies that focus on animal genetic resource management.

‘The following actions among others should be taken at the project level:

• ‘Collect gender- and age-disaggregated data and investigate the rights, needs, roles and responsibilities of women during surveys and before embarking on any project related to animal genetic resources.
• ‘Design extension, training and the introduction of new technologies so that they are accessible to women.
• ‘Investigate family structures and how they affect the ability of women to act and interact.
• ‘Investigate specific problems that women have in accessing markets for their animal products.

If governments really want their conservation programmes to bear fruit, they can:

• ‘Conduct economic studies of keeping locally adapted vs improved breeds.
• ‘Ensure that poor herders have sufficient access to common property like grazing lands.
• ‘Inform banks about the importance of providing credit to rural women and about the benefits of indigenous breeds; banks currently tend to lend to male farmers and people who want to stock improved breeds.
• ‘Support value-chain development for products from indigenous breeds as a means of creating income opportunities for rural women and reviving local economies.

‘International agencies can back up national efforts to empower women livestock keepers by collecting and disseminating gender-disaggregated data and putting the issue on the global agenda in appropriate forums.’

Read the news release at the FAO Media Centre: Women are main guardians of crucial livestock diversity, 5 Nov 2012, or the full report: Invisible Guardians: Women Manage Livestock Diversity, Nov 2012.

See also Strategy and plan of action to mainstream gender at ILRI, ILRI Policy Brief, April 2012, or the whole report: Strategy and Plan of Action to Mainstream Gender at ILRI. Nairobi: International Livestock Research Institute, Mar 2012.

And see Livestock and Women’s Livelihoods: A Review of the Recent Evidence, ILRI Discussion Paper No. 20, by Patti Kristjanson, Ann Waters-Bayer, Nancy Johnson, Anna Tipilda, Jemimah Njuki, Isabelle Baltenweck, Delia Grace and Susan MacMillan. Nairobi: International Livestock Research Institute, 2010.

See also this week’s blog post by CGIAR director general (WorldFish Center) Stephen Hall: Reflections on gender transformative research, 5 Nov 2012.

Watch this 4-minute video narrated by former ILRI gender expert Jemimah Njuki: Working with and for women and livestock, 2011.

And the 13-minute video in, Farm Animals Can Help Millions of Women Raise the Well-being of Their Households and Communities,which ILRI scientist Jemimah Njuki argues for using animal agriculture to help redress skewed resources available to rural women worldwide. In societies where women are unable to own anything else, farm animals provide women with incomes. And when those women’s incomes rise, the health, nutrition and education of their whole families also rise, with everybody winning.

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Biodiversity, Film and video, Indigenous Breeds, Launch, PA, Women Tagged: FAO, Ilse Kohler-Rollefson

This report on Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa: Estimate of livestock demographic parameters in Senegal was released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in August 2012.

Authored by Maria Ejlertsen, Jane Poole and Karen Marshall, it describes the results of a 12-month survey to estimate livestock demographic parameters of endemic ruminant livestock (ERL) kept by smallholders in selected sites in Senegal. The demographic parameters estimated included natural rates, such as parturition, abortion and mortality rates, as well as management rates, such as off take and intake rates.

The key recommendations include:

• Interventions towards lowering the natural mortality. In the short to medium term (next few to 20 years) this should mainly be through changes to management practices. The results from the PROGEBE Senegal household survey suggest that the main areas of intervention should be in relation to diseases and feed resources. However, any scheme of interventions should be based on local conditions and further investigations are required in this regard. In the much longer term (20 to 50 years) it may be possible to reduce mortality by genetically improving the animals through a breeding program.

• Interventions to improve reproductive parameters should be prioritized, namely, age at first parturition, parturition interval and abortion rates. Again, this should mainly be through changes in management practices in the short-term, such as improved feeding, while in the longer term these parameters could potentially be improved through genetic improvement.

• Capacity building programs to improve awareness of traditional and alternate management and breeding practices and the effect these have on livestock production and productivity.

• A modelling study utilizing the demographic parameters estimated here, combined with other data from the household survey, livestock census and literature to determine the expected impact of potential PROGEBE interventions (such as improved health-care, feeding and/or animal genetic improvement) on livestock production over different time horizons.

The findings of this survey clearly indicate that N’Dama cattle, Djallonke sheep, and WAD goat are the prominent breeds in the PROGEBE-Senegal project areas and suggests that some level of controlled breeding seems to be applied in most herds/flocks, primarily through sire selection (although these may or may not be implemented with a specific breeding objective in mind). There seem to be a considerable scope for improvement of especially reproductive demographic parameters through improved herd/flock management in the short term, and breeding strategies in the long term.

Download the report

Filed under: Africa, Animal Breeding, Animal Production, Biodiversity, CRP37, Livestock, Report, Senegal, West Africa Tagged: PROGEBE

A recent news feature in Nature Climate Change, Light is cast on a long shadow, notes the warming relations (forgive the pun) between scientists in the livestock and climate change communities.

‘The fields of climate change and livestock research have not always been cosy bedfellows. But they are ironing out their difficulties and looking ahead.

‘Six years ago, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a report saying that livestock release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport. Or, put more precisely, livestock contribute 18% of the planet’s greenhouse-gas emissions. This is mainly because carbon dioxide is released when forests are chopped down to create space to grow feed, because poorly managed slurry and manure release lots of nitrous oxide, and because ruminants emit copious methane as flatulence.

‘The livestock research community did not appreciate the storm of media attention that this whipped up. Many researchers also disputed how the FAO had done its sums. . . .

‘However, agricultural sectors such as the dairy industry are closely involved in benchmarking for the latest assessments of greenhouse-gas emissions. An organization called the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases was set up in late 2009 and now comprises 30 countries. Such steps seem to have drawn the estimates closer together. “The numbers are now not fundamentally different to what was in that 2006 report,” adds [FAO's Irene] Hoffmann.

Mario Herrero, a researcher at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), considers the range of results from respectable studies to lie between about 10 and 18%—putting the FAO’s original figure as his upper bracket.

‘Researchers are now at least as interested in how climate change will alter where different species and breeds of livestock will flourish around the world—and how human livelihoods will be affected. Livestock are an important source of income for the poorest one billion people on the planet. Currently the sector contributes between 30 and 40% of the gross domestic product of many sub-Saharan African and South Asian countries.

It’s not a sector you can dismiss and decide that we shouldn’t all be eating meat. It’s not as simple as that,” says Herrero.

‘Livestock will become more important in coming decades. As the middle classes of developing countries swell, they are buying more meat and dairy products per capita; they are on course to demand twice the current amount of livestock products in 2050.

‘There are plenty of simple ways to improve the amount of meat or milk produced for each unit of emissions. . . .

‘The greatest efficiency gains can be made in the developing world. . . . Herrero and his ILRI colleague, Philip Thornton, have calculated how much methane and carbon dioxide release could be avoided in the typical animal husbandry systems found in tropical rangelands . . . . [I]f the advice of experts were adopted at the kind of rates that have been historically common, 4% of the global agricultural mitigation potential to 2030 would be achieved.

You could use really simple ways to produce twice the amount of milk per greenhouse-gas unit,” says Herrero, “but, of course, you need farmers to have better access to markets and so on. Without the right incentives, sustainable intensification won’t happen.”

‘Herrero foresees the potential to pay livestock farmers in tropical rangelands for maintaining their herds at the right densities and moving them around in an appropriate way. . . .

‘Genomics should benefit the livestock sector more broadly. . . . Knowing which genomic features give a cow a milk-producing advantage in the heat can help farmers selectively breed better herds. . . .

Particularly diverse breeds tend to occur in Africa, says Olivier Hanotte, of the University of Nottingham. . . . Moreover, because these breeds are rare, they are rapidly being lost as their owners seek to hybridize them with more productive, internationally common breeds.

‘This invisible loss worries many in the field. Genes for characteristics that may prove useful—even essential—in the future could disappear. One way to avoid this is to keep genetic resources in biobanks. . . . Potentially losing breeds that confer resistance to pathogens is troubling. And that is where African breeds can be particularly helpful. But the world needs to collect data on this before it is too late. . . .

Livestock research has much to contribute to mitigating and adapting to climate change. Surely, the first step is to give it more than 3% of agricultural research money.’

Subscribers can read the whole article by Anna Petherick in Nature Climate Change Vol. 2, pages 705–706: Light is cast on a long shadow, 27 Sep 2012: doi:10.1038/nclimate1703

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Animal Production, Article, Climate Change, Environment, ILRI, LivestockFutures, PA Tagged: FAO, Irene Hoffmann, Mario Herrero, Nature Climate Change, Olivier Hanotte, Philip Thornton

Watch ‘The Importance of Livestock Production in Kenya’, a short (3:12) filmed interview by FarmingFirst at Rio+20 of 2010 AWARD Fellow Bridgit Muasa, a Kenyan livestock breeding specialist mentored by ILRI scientist Karen Marshall.

Bridgit Muasa, from Kenya, is a veterinary officer with the Kenya Ministry of Livestock Development. She has been mentored in the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) professional development program by Karen Marshall,  a scientist in animal breeding and quantitative genetics working at the Nairobi headquarters of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

‘Livestock management in Kenya is often left to the women, who manage the animals’ day-to-day health and production’, says Muasa, who is working on improving the delivery of farm animal genetic resources via assisted reproductive technologies as a research assistant at ILRI.

Muasa says that livestock are a crucial aspect of millions of livelihoods in Kenya. She says Kenya has 14 million indigenous cattle and 3 million genetically improved exotic breeds of cattle. Her research is breeding cattle that are both highly productive, like exotic breeds, and resilient to harsh weather conditions, like Africa’s native breeds.

Muasa conducts research on reproductive technologies to improve animal genetic resources, particularly evaluation of the Boran cow as a potential donor of oocytes for in vitro embryo production.

One of the ways we’re trying to address this is by building a sort of “supercow” by breeding exotic cows with indigenous cows, and so getting the best attributes from each. For this we use the technology in vitro embryo production, which is essentially like test-tube babies; so now we have test-tube cows.

Muasa holds a BSc in veterinary medicine and a master’s in clinical studies in theriogenology from the University of Nairobi. She plans to pursue a PhD in livestock development with an emphasis on improving livestock genetic resources. She was interviewed on film on 14 Jun 2012 at the Rio+20 United Nations Sustainable Development conference. The filmed interview is part of a FarmingFirst TV series.

Muasa is one of 250 African woman scientists who have won an AWARD Fellowship. AWARD strengthens the research and leadership skills of African women in agricultural science, empowering them to contribute more effectively to poverty alleviation and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. For more information, please visit www.awardfellowships.org

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Biotech, Biotechnology, East Africa, Event, Film and video, Genetics, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Interview, Kenya, PA, Staff Tagged: 2012Rio+20, 2012RioPlus20, AWARD, Bridgit Muasa, Karen Marshall, Kenya Ministry of Livestock Development, Rio4Ag

In the past few weeks, Madeline McCurry-Schmidt has published a series of short pieces exploring ways that animal scientists can help feed the world’s growing population.

Published on the American Society of Animal Science ‘Taking Stock’ blog, the five articles covered:

Part 1 – explored the coming food crisis from a livestock perspective
Part 2 – looked at how animal scientists use new nutrition research and technology to increase feed efficiency
Part 3 – looked at how new research and technology related to animal breeding can make animal production more efficient
Part 4 – looked at ways animal scientists can treat and prevent the diseases that threaten animal and human health
Part 5 – looked at the challenges of applying animal science research around the world.

All five parts can also be downloaded as a single PDF file

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Animal Diseases, Animal Feeding, Animal Health, Animal Production, Food security, Livestock, Research Tagged: ASAS

Holstein-Friesian cow, Biggle cow book, Philadelphia, W Atkinson Co., 1898 (photo on Flickr by Biodiversity Heritage Library).

Dairy scientists are the Gregor Mendels of the genomics age, developing new methods for understanding the link between genes and living things, all while quadrupling the average cow’s milk production since your parents were born.

‘While there are more than 8 million Holstein dairy cows in the United States, there is exactly one bull that has been scientifically calculated to be the very best in the land. He goes by the name of Badger-Bluff Fanny Freddie. . . .

‘Data-driven predictions are responsible for a massive transformation of America’s dairy cows. While other industries are just catching on to this whole “big data” thing, the animal sciences—and dairy breeding in particular—have been using large amounts of data since long before VanRaden was calculating the outsized genetic impact of the most sought-after bulls with a pencil and paper in the 1980s. . . .

‘One reason for the change in breeding emphasis is that our cows already produce tremendous amounts of milk relative to their forbears. In 1942, when my father was born, the average dairy cow produced less than 5,000 pounds of milk in its lifetime. Now, the average cow produces over 21,000 pounds of milk. At the same time, the number of dairy cows has decreased from a high of 25 million around the end of World War II to fewer than nine million today. This is an indisputable environmental win as fewer cows create less methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and require less land.

‘At the same time, it turns out that cow genomes are more complex than we thought: as milk production amps up, fertility drops. There’s an art to balancing all the traits that go into optimizing a herd.

‘While we may worry about the use of antibiotics to stimulate animal growth or the use of hormones to increase milk production by up to 25 percent, most of the increase in the pounds of milk an animal puts out over the pastoral days of yore come from the genetic changes that we’ve wrought within these animals. It doesn’t matter how the cow is raised—in an idyllic pasture or a feedlot—either way, the animal of 2012 is not the animal of 1940 or 1980 or even 2000. A group of USDA and University of Minnesota scientists calculated that 22 percent of the genome of Holstein cattle has been altered by human selection over the last 40 years.

‘In a sense that’s very real, information itself has transformed these animals. The information did not accomplish this feat on its own, of course. All of this technological and scientific change is occurring within the social context of American capitalism. Over the last few decades, the number of dairies has collapsed and the size of herds has increased. These larger operations are factory farms that are built to squeeze inefficiencies out of the system to generate profits. They benefit from economies of scale that allow them to bring in genomic specialists and use more expensive bull semen.

‘No matter how you apportion the praise or blame, the net effect is the same. Thousands of years of qualitative breeding on family-run farms begat cows producing a few thousand pounds of milk in their lifetimes; a mere 70 years of quantitative breeding optimized to suit corporate imperatives quadrupled what all previous civilization had accomplished. And the crazy thing is, we’re at the cusp of a new era in which genomic data starts to compress the cycle of trait improvement, accelerating our path towards the perfect milk-production machine, also known as the Holstein dairy cow. . . .

‘With that in mind, allow me to suggest, then, that the dairy farmers of America, and the geneticists who work with them, are the Mendels of the genomic age. That makes the dairy cow the pea plant of this exciting new time in biology. Last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science[s], two of the most successful bulls of all time had their genomes published.

This is a landmark in dairy herd genomics, but it’s most significant as a sign that while genomics remains mostly a curiosity for humans, it’s already coming of age when it comes to cattle. It’s telling that the cutting-edge genomics company Illumina has precisely one applied market: animal science. They make a chip that measures 50,000 markers on the cow genome for attributes that control the economically important functions of those animals.

‘. . . The unique dataset and success of dairy breeders now has other scientists sniffing around their findings. Leonid Kruglyak, a genomics professor at Princeton, told me that “a lot of the statistical techniques and methodology” that connect phenotype and genotype were developed by animal breeders. In a sense, they are like codebreakers. If you know the rules of encoding. it’s not difficult to put information in one end and have it pop out the other as a code. But if you’re starting with the code, that’s a brutally difficult problem. And it’s the one that diary geneticists have been working on. . . .’

Read the whole article at the Atlantic: The Perfect Milk Machine: How Big Data Transformed the Dairy Industry, 1 May 2012.

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Biotechnology, Cattle, Dairying, Genetics, PA Tagged: Holstein, The Atlantic

Min piglets at the experimental station at the Institute for Animal Science, in Beijing, China (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

America is breeding farm animals for China, Reuters and the New York Times report, to supply China with more meat.

‘. . . In a country where pork is a staple, the demand for a protein-rich diet is growing faster than Chinese farmers can keep up. While Americans have cut back on meat consumption to the lowest level seen in two decades, Chinese consumers eat 10 percent more meat than they did five years ago.

‘China’s solution: to increase its supply by buying millions of live animals raised by American farmers as breeding stock, and capitalizing on decades of cutting-edge U.S. agricultural research.

‘By taking this step, breeders and exporters say, China will move from backyard farms to Western-style large, consolidated operations to keep up with demand. . . .

‘The focus on livestock genetics also represents an emerging economic bonanza for two of the most powerful American industries: technology and agriculture. Worldwide, the United States exported a record $664 million worth of breeding stock and genetic material like semen in 2011. . . .

‘Last year, Chinese companies bought $41 million worth of live breeding animals and genetics, up threefold from five years ago, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

‘The demand for breeder pigs, in particular, is increasing after China lifted a two-year ban on hog and pork imports last spring. . . .

‘These animals are not sold for meat. Their value is in their genes, which allow them to grow faster, fight off diseases better and give birth to more babies that survive than their Chinese counterparts.

‘The effect of a vastly larger, more efficient livestock sector in China would cause a major shift in the global market, particularly for grain demand.

‘Even if Chinese demand cools for U.S. meat exports, the pace of Beijing’s growing demand for grain is unlikely to wane or offer relief to global agricultural markets, which are struggling to keep up. . . .’

‘Ronald Lemenager, a professor of animal sciences at Purdue University in Indiana, said: “When you have a nation’s diet changing as rapidly as China’s, the most efficient way to build up production is to improve your animal genetics. We have the genetics they want.”’

Read the whole article at the New York Times: From the U.S., a future supply of livestock for China, 20 Apr 2012.

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Animal Feeding, China, Genetics, Intensification, PA, Pigs, Poultry, Trade, USA Tagged: New York Times, Reuters

Measuring milk for sale in India (photo credit: ILRI).

‘The World Bank signs an agreement with India to inject $352 million into the National Dairy Support Project, an initiative designed to revive the flagging fortunes of milk production in the country.

Other than being crucial to the nutritional security of the country’s population; dairy farming or dairying is also a major source of livelihood for 147 million rural households in India.

‘Spurred by the success of the White Revolution of the 1970s, milk and other dairy-products related production grew drastically over decades in the country. But of late, there has been a marked drop, with annual production decreasing to 3.8 per cent in the 2000s from 4.3 per cent in the 1990s. The Government’s latest initiative with the World Bank is meant to remedy this drop in production in anticipation of expected increase in demand.

‘India currently produces 120 million tons of milk per annum. By 2021-22, the demand is expected to be for 180 million tons, according to government estimates. This implies that for the next ten years from now, production would have to grow at 5.5 per cent year on year. To achieve this India would have to primarily find ways of boosting the productivity of its milk animals from a daily average of 3.4 kgs to 6.3 kgs, which is the global standard. . . .

‘The project will primarily focus on increasing milk production by improving the genetic quality of dairy herd and optimal use of feed and fodder. It will support long-term investments in animal breeding, extensive training of dairy farmers and doorstep delivery of artificial insemination. It will also aim at creating ration balancing advisory services, which will promote balanced animal feed and nutrition to not only increase milk yield and reduce productions costs, but also contribute to reduced methane emissions. . . .

The project will also raise farmers’ awareness about the importance of good quality milk and build their capacity for hygienic milk production, collection and sale,” said Deepak Ahluwalia, the Project’s Task Team Leader and Senior Economist, World Bank.

Read the whole article in OneWorld South Asia: A second White Revolution for India?, 16 Apr 2012.

Information on ILRI’s work in India

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Buffalo, Cattle, Dairying, Fodder, India, PA, Project, South Asia Tagged: OneWorld South Asia, World Bank

Kenyan geneticist and new PhD Sheila Ommeh (right) works at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa Hub (BecA Hub) and ILRI’s animal health laboratories in Nairobi, Kenya, studying Africa’s native chicken breeds (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan).

‘Sheila Ommeh, a poultry geneticist at the International Livestock Research Centre in Nairobi, hopes to introduce a disease-resistant chicken that can be easily reared by women farmers.

‘The humble chicken may be a small bird but it could play a big role in reducing rural poverty in Africa, particularly among women farmers. . . .

‘Ommeh knows a thing or two about chickens, having grown up on the slopes of Mount Elgon in western Kenya where most homes rely on poultry flocks for food and income.

‘Her mother, aunts and grandmothers all kept chickens and the birds even paid for some of her schooling.

‘Three quarters of rural households in Kenya rear poultry, which is a cheap source of good protein. These smallholders are mostly women.

‘But Ommeh has seen first-hand how virulent diseases like Newcastle and Gomboro can wipe out flocks and destroy families’ livelihoods, increasing hunger and forcing parents to pull their children out of school because they can’t afford to pay for it. . . .

‘Although women produce most of the food consumed in Africa, only one in four agricultural researchers are female and even fewer hold leadership positions in African agricultural research institutions.

‘One organisation trying to close this gap is African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), which is helping women like Ommeh build their technical and leadership skills. . . .

‘Ommeh, who holds a PhD in chicken genetics, firmly believes that the answers to Africa’s problems lie within Africa.

In my view … it’s about time Africa looked for solutions in Africa for Africa,” she told TrustLaw, during a trip to London to address a group of British MPs about empowering African women scientists.

‘. . . The 34-year-old scientist believes it should be possible to produce a disease-resistant breed that weighs around 4 kilogrammes and produces 250 eggs a year – about three times the weight and yield of indigenous chickens. . . .

Chicken is a small livestock but I believe it has the capacity to have a big impact.”. . .’

Read the whole article at TrustLaw: Designer chicken could help empower Africa’s rural women, 07 Mar 2012.

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Animal Diseases, Animal Health, BecA, Biodiversity, Biotech, Disease Control, East Africa, Event, Genetics, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Kenya, PA, Poultry, Vaccines, Women Tagged: AWARD, Chickens, Sheila Ommeh, TrustLaw

Since 1999, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)  has partnered with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) to provide capacity building on the sustainable use of Animal Genetic Resources (AnGR).

This report by Julie Ojango, Birgitta Malmfors, Okeyo Mwai, and Jan Philipsson on Training the trainers – An innovative and successful model for capacity building in animal genetic resource utilization in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia was released by ILRI and SLU on 31 December 2011.

Scientists from 46 developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia have been trained on animal breeding and genetics developments, implementation of breeding strategies, and on teaching and communication methods.

Livestock accounts on average for about 30% of the agricultural GDP in developing countries, yet the productivity of many livestock populations is inadequate due to a complexity of factors. The genetic variability between and within species and breeds is largely unexploited at the same time as a continuous loss of genetic diversity takes place. Livestock productivity must increase to meet the projected demand for doubled meat and milk production within a few decades in developing countries, while minimizing environmental impact. These challenges require highly skilled people to lead the development in the desired direction. Unfortunately, developing countries suffer from a shortage of trained people, not least in the area of animal breeding and genetics, both at research and higher education institutions and in organizations responsible for livestock development.

It is in this context that the ILRI-SLU project has developed its philosophy of ‘training the trainers’ to effectively multiply knowledge and concepts to new generations of students, researchers and policy makers. This synthesis report provides insights and reflections on the project’s outputs and outcomes, and informs on the ways forward in terms of further investment in developing and strengthening human capacity in the field of AnGR.

Download the research report

More on this topic:

• AGTR – the ILRI-SLU Animal genetics training resource

• DAGRIS – the domestic animal genetic resources system

• Our animal genetic resources virtual library

Filed under: Africa, Animal Breeding, Asia, Biodiversity, Biotech, Capacity Strengthening, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Livestock, Report, Research Tagged: AnGR, SLU

Although livestock play a central role in rural development in West Africa, traditional livestock systems have high death rates, low reproductive rates and low offtake rates. Furthermore, the presence of trypanosome-infected tsetse flies in the sub-humid and humid areas hurts the potential for livestock production. The region’s endemic ruminant livestock, however, are highly adapted to the local environmental conditions and are able with minimal inputs to remain productive in tsetse-infested areas where other breeds cannot survive. The conservation and improvement of these native African breeds has potential to greatly improve the livelihoods of West Africa’s livestock keepers.

A project named ‘Sustainable Management of Globally Significant Endemic Ruminant Livestock in West Africa’ (or ‘PROGEBE‘, an acronym of the French version of the project title) aims to develop models for community-based conservation and management of critical habitats for three endemic ruminant livestock breeds—N’Dama cattle, Djallonké sheep and West Africa Dwarf goats—and to develop strategies for preserving their unique genetic traits/habitats.

A research report by Karen Marshall, Maria Ejlertsen and Jane Poole of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), on Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa (PROGEBE): Estimate of livestock demographic parameters in the Gambia was released by ILRI on 20 Dec 2011.

This report describes the results of a 12-month retrospective survey for estimating livestock demographic parameters of endemic ruminant livestock kept by smallholders in The Gambia. The demographic parameters estimated included natural rates, such as parturition, prolificacy and mortality rates, as well as management rates, such as offtake and intake rates.

The 12-month retrospective survey, covering the period between mid-November 2008 and mid-November 2009 and carried out in November 2009, is one of several baseline surveys being conducted by the PROGEBE project in The Gambia; 29 cattle herds (of mostly the ancient West African N’Dama breed), 83 sheep flocks (mostly Djallonké) and 92 goat herds (mostly of West African Dwarf) were surveyed.

The results of the survey suggest there is considerable scope for improvement of demographic parameters through improved herd/flock management in the short term and breeding strategies in the long term. The single most striking result is the natural mortality rate, which was found to be very high for cattle less than one year of age and for sheep and goats across all age groups.

Download the research report

Filed under: Africa, Animal Breeding, Animal Production, Biodiversity, Biotech, Cattle, Gambia, Goats, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Livestock, Project, Report, Research, Sheep, Small Ruminants, West Africa Tagged: Gambia, Karen Marshall, PROGEBE

Livestock are ubiquitous in the developing world. The ‘big five’—cattle, sheep, goats, poultry and pigs—as well as 9 other popular farm animals and 26 or so more specialized species are raised by more than half a billion people either on pastoral rangelands by nomadic herders, or on mixed farms by smallholders who raise crops along with livestock, or in peri-urban areas by people who raise a few animals in their backyards. All of these small-scale livestock enterprises matter to developing-country governments because livestock account for some 30 per cent of their agricultural gross domestic product, a figure expected to rise to 40 per cent by the year 2030.

The diverse livestock production systems, like most crop production systems, are changing in response to globalization, urbanization, environmental degradation, climate change and science and technology. But the fastest changes are occurring within the livestock systems. That’s because the developing world’s rising human populations and household incomes are causing demand for milk, meat, eggs and other livestock foods to soar. As one would expect, livestock markets are growing and changing to serve that growing demand. What’s less appreciated are the changes being wrought by many of the billion-plus small-scale livestock keepers and sellers of the developing world who are changing the way they do business to help meet that growing demand. The rate of change within the livestock sector is so rapid that many local populations of livestock developed by small-scale farmers over millennia no longer have time to evolve adaptations to their new circumstances or the new needs of their owners. They are simply dying out, and at unprecedented and accelerating rates.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that on average a breed disappears every month and that 20 per cent of our uniquely adapted breeds of domestic animals are at risk of extinction. Over the last 150 years, farmers in industrialized countries supplanted their indigenous farm animals with a few high-producing breeds of a few species (chickens, pigs, cattle) suited to highly intensified production systems. The result is that 70 per cent of the world’s known livestock genetic diversity now resides on small farms and in remote regions of developing countries. With all the challenges facing developing countries and their one billion people living on less than a dollar a day, the question arises as to what immediate practical and cost-effective steps could be taken to preserve the wealth of their livestock genetic diversity. From a research viewpoint, it’s clear that if we’re going to manage the world’s remaining livestock genetic resources well, we’ll have to characterize the remaining populations to decide which are worth saving and why, we’ll have to find ways of broadening use of those populations deemed useful, and we’ll have to conserve the most important livestock genetic diversity for possible future use—by poor and rich farmers alike.

Discover more about this topic:

• News, updates, stories
• Photos
• Presentations
• Publications
• CGIAR Research Program on livestock and fish
• DAGRIS project
• Animal genetics training resource
• More on the ILRI web site

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Biodiversity, Genetics, Indigenous Breeds Tagged: breeds

Developing countries such as Ethiopia have many indigenous chicken varieties which are well adapted to local environments as they are excellent foragers, better able to avoid predator attacks and demonstrate better immunity to common diseases. However, due to relatively low genetic potential and poor levels of husbandry, most of these indigenous chicken breeds grow slowly and are poor producers of small sized eggs. Furthermore, infectious diseases have a major impact and prevent even this limited genetic potential from being realised. Breeding programs using local chicken ecotypes suggest rapid improvement in productivity is possible. However, these programs are yet to select for resistance to infectious disease.

The ‘chicken health for development‘ project in Ethiopia aims to develop a poultry breeding program to improve resistance to priority infectious diseases whilst enhancing productivity and production.

Project researcher Stacey Lynch recently published this video on the work of the project as it works with communities to sample local chickens for diseases and genetic resistance …

 

 

Read a related issue brief on chicken research for development by project scientist Tadelle Dessie …

Filed under: Africa, Animal Breeding, Animal Diseases, Biotech, Disease Control, East Africa, Epidemiology, Ethiopia, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Livestock, Poultry, Project, Research Tagged: ch4d

 

During the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, we video recorded reports back from group discussions in three of the sessions:

Animal health and genetics – issues and controversies for ILRI research. This session discussed significant or controversial developments; the next big thing in animal genetics, breeding, health, genomics, and feeding.

 

Livestock systems in transition – issues on the ILRI agenda . This session looked at experiences with different aspects of livestock systems: Crop residue tradeoffs, sustainable intensification, vulnerability and pastoralism, livestock-water and climate change.

 

Livestock impact pathways – needs, targeting, up front investments are important. This session discussed ways to enhance ILRI efforts on capacity development, knowledge, gender, communication, partnerships and innovation platforms.

 

On 9 and 10 November 2011, the ILRI Board of Trustees hosted a 2-day ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ to discuss and reflect on livestock research for development. The event synthesized sector and ILRI learning and helped frame future livestock research for development directions.

The liveSTOCK Exchange also marked the leadership and contributions of Dr. Carlos Seré as ILRI Director General.  See all posts in this series / Sign up for email alerts

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Animal Production, Biotech, Biotechnology, East Africa, Event report, Genetics, ILRI, Livestock, Livestock Systems, Partnerships, PLE, Research Tagged: livestockX

Between 15 and 17 November 2011, scientists, experts and development practitioners from the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, universities and non-governmental and international organizations gathered in Addis Ababa to share research results on trypanotolerance in indigenous local cattle breeds in Ethiopia (Sheko, Abigar, Horro and Gurage) and experiences with community-based sheep breeding.

The Sheko breed got high attention in the workshop.  It is small in number – almost endangered – yet highly trypanotolerant in tsetse infested areas, but communities are reluctant to adopt the Sheko breed because of its endangered status.

Participants discussed how the potential of the Sheko breed could be exploited. First, by breeding to preserve its unique characteristics that can improve the productivity of stallholders in tsetse infested areas of Ethiopia, second, to alter community perceptions on the breed.

Following some presentations, participants formed groups to discuss two topics: sheep breeding and tryps control. Key issues emerging from the groups were the need to develop a central database, scale-up community-based sheep breeding programs, market strategy, capacity building and mobilization of communities ,and development of an integrated national trypanosomosis control strategy.

On the last day of the workshop, a small group formed to develop and submit a sheep breeding and tryps control concept note and action plans to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Jan Philipsson from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences reflects on the meeting:

The workshop was organized by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).

Photos on flickr

Powerpoint presentations on Slideshare

Video interview with Okeyo Mwai (ILRI)

Filed under: Agriculture, Animal Breeding, Animal Diseases, Animal Production, Biodiversity, Biotech, Biotechnology, Ethiopia, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Livestock, Sheep, Small Ruminants Tagged: Abigar, cattlebreedsr4d, EIAR, Gurage, Horro, sheep, sheko, SLU

For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Azage Tegegne and Dirk Hoekstra prepared an issue brief on genetic improvement of cattle in the ‘Improving the Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian farmers’ (IPMS) project …

A key intervention for dairy and meat value chains in Ethiopia is the use of genetically improved cows. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there are about 30,000 crossbred dairy cows in Ethiopia. In contrast, Kenya has around 3 million crossbred dairy cows. It was therefore not surprising to find that stakeholders in the IPMS project districts identified the lack of genetically improved animals as a key constraint in dairy and meat value chains.

To address this bottleneck, the project partners initially experimented with private artificial insemination (AI) service providers, private bull stations and facilitating the purchase of crossbred heifers. Although some improvements could be observed, large scale impact would take a long time.

In discussions among project scientists, the use of mass insemination in targeted production areas using hormones to regulate the estrus cycle was discussed as an alternative option. In recent months therefore, the IPMS project with its partners tried and gained experience with mass insemination of cows in different milk sheds in various parts of the country.

Download Issue Brief 18.

On 9 and 10 November 2011, the ILRI Board of Trustees hosts a 2-day ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ to discuss and reflect on livestock research for development. The event will synthesize sector and ILRI learning and help frame future livestock research for development directions.

The liveSTOCK Exchange will also mark the leadership and contributions of Dr. Carlos Seré as ILRI Director General.  See all posts in this series / Sign up for email alerts

Filed under: Africa, Animal Breeding, Animal Production, Cattle, East Africa, Ethiopia, Genetics, ILRI, IPMS, Livestock, Report, Research Tagged: IPMS, livestockX

For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Tadelle Dessie, Yetnayet Mamo and Okeyo Mwai prepared an issue brief on the Domestic Animal Genetic Resources Information System (DAGRIS) …

In developing countries, lack of accurate information on the diversity and status of existing farm animal genetic resources is believed to exacerbate the alarming rate of
irreversible loss of genetic diversity. Such losses reduce opportunities to improve food security, alleviate poverty and attain sustainable agricultural practices.

DAGRIS (http://dagris.ilri.cgiar.org) is an electronic source of systematic information on indigenous farm animal genetic resources. Initial development of the system focused on three priority farm animal species in Africa – cattle, sheep and goats. It was subsequently expanded to include other livestock species (chicken, pigs, buffalo and yak) and developing countries in Africa and Asia.

Download Issue Brief 9.

On 9 and 10 November 2011, the ILRI Board of Trustees hosts a 2-day ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ to discuss and reflect on livestock research for development. The event will synthesize sector and ILRI learning and help frame future livestock research for development directions.

The liveSTOCK Exchange will also mark the leadership and contributions of Dr. Carlos Seré as ILRI Director General.  See all posts in this series / Sign up for email alerts

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Biodiversity, Biotech, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Knowledge & Information, Livestock, Report, Research Tagged: dagris, livestockX

For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Okeyo Mwai, livestock geneticist, reflects on ILRI’s research over the past decade on the animal genetic resources of the developing world and future directions.

Watch the 2-minute interview with Okeyo Mwai.

What we achieved in the last decade
With the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and many other partners, local as well as international, we achieved:

> Greater public understanding of the value of Africa’s indigenous livestock genetic resources through assessments and articulations of their global ‘meltdown’ in recent decades and the causes for this.

> Greater understanding by policymakers that the best way to conserve this important ‘barnyard diversity’ is to make greater use of native breeds, populations and genes on farms—and that implies providing the farmers both with the animal stock and with incentives for maintaining them.

> Greater scientific understanding of the rich storehouse of genetic potential that has evolved in indigenous livestock that may be used to help people cope with a more extreme and unpredictable climate in future.

What we learned in the last decade
> International agreements on actions urgently needed to conserve and improve the animal genetic resources of the developing world don’t necessarily translate into funding to get the job done.

> High-level declarations and agreements do not translate easily into national and regional programs, and the latter often diverge in their perspectives and approaches.

What were the challenges?
> Encouraging developing countries to embrace smart ways of bio/gene banking selected populations of their indigenous livestock.

> Helping national and regional organizations to make more and better use of current science and good practice in the conservation and use of their livestock genetic resources.

> Obtaining sufficient funds to conduct livestock breeding research with real impacts in developing countries.

What were some outcomes?
> ILRI’s significant scientific presence and messages, keynote paper given by Carlos Seré, and strong media outreach at an FAO conference on animal genetic resources in Interlaken, Switzerland, in 2007.

> ILRI’s high-profile John Vercoe Conference on Animal Breeding for Poverty Alleviation in 2007.

> ILRI’s significant contributions to a 2011 Special Issue on Animal Genetic Resources in Livestock Science.

> Livestock breeding strategies added to ILRI research agenda.

> In vitro reproductive technology platforms developed and protocols adapted; successful production of in vitro calves.

Current situation
> Need to continue pushing for better and more integrated and comprehensive phenotyping and data collection on breed performance, genomics and bioinformatics using innovative IT applications and geographic information systems.

> Need to invest more in quantitative-genomic expertise and to focus on designing productive research-to-development projects and building capacity of developing countries to do this work.

Future directions
> In the face of rapidly disappearing livestock breeds and genes in developing countries, build a phenotypic and genomic livestock database and well-documented bio/gene banks for use by scientists in future, who one day may be able to replicate breeds that have disappeared.

> Embrace emerging sciences such as livestock genomics and bioinformatics and comparative reproductive technologies as integral and significant parts of ILRI’s research program and become the partner of choice and a reference institution in the area of animal genetic resources.

Contributed by Okeyo Mwai, Team Leader in ILRI’s Biotechnology Theme.

On 9 and 10 November 2011, the ILRI Board of Trustees hosted a 2-day ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ to discuss and reflect on livestock research for development. The event synthesized sector and ILRI learning and helped frame future livestock research for development directions.

The liveSTOCK Exchange also marked the leadership and contributions of Dr. Carlos Seré as ILRI Director General. See all posts in this series / Sign up for email alerts

Filed under: Animal Breeding, Biotech, East Africa, Event, Film and video, Genetics, ILRI, Indigenous Breeds, Kenya, Sheep, Small Ruminants, Staff Tagged: 2011 Livestock Xchange Conference (ILRI Addis), livestockX, Okeyo Mwai, Red Masai sheep