Review article
Successes and failures of small ruminant breeding programmes in the tropics: a review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smallrumres.2005.01.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Despite the large numbers and importance of adapted indigenous sheep and goats in the tropics, information on sustainable conventional breeding programmes for them is scarce and often unavailable. This paper reviews within-breed selection strategies for indigenous small ruminants in the tropics, highlighting aspects determining their success or failure. The aim is to better understand opportunities for genetic improvement of small ruminants by the resource-poor farmers in traditional smallholder and pastoral farming systems. Dismal performance of programmes involving breed substitution of exotics for indigenous breeds and crossbreeding with temperate breeds have stimulated a recent re-orientation of breeding programmes in tropical countries to utilize indigenous breeds, and most programmes are incipient. The success rate of some breeding programmes involving native breeds is encouraging. Definition of comprehensive breeding objectives incorporating the specific, immediate, and long-term social and economic circumstances of the target group as well as ecological constraints was found lacking in some projects that failed. To achieve success, it is necessary to look at the production system holistically, and involve the producer at every stage in the planning and operation of the breeding programme, integrating traditional behaviour and values.

Introduction

Despite the large numbers and importance of adapted indigenous small ruminants (i.e., sheep and goats) in the tropics, information on sustainable breeding strategies for them is scarce and often unavailable. This paper reviews within-breed selection strategies (village, commercial, and national) for indigenous small ruminants in the tropics, highlighting aspects contributing to their success or failure. The aim is to learn from them, and better understand opportunities for improvement of small ruminants by the resource-poor farmers in traditional smallholder and pastoral farming systems in the tropics. Information is derived from published papers, project reports and evaluations, and field visits. However, this review is by no means complete in light of the fact that finding enough small ruminant breeding programmes, utilizing native breeds, described in sufficient detail and evaluated over a long time in the tropics is often difficult. The focus is rather general, as most programmes encountered tended to be generic in protocol and approach. The criterion of evaluating success or failure is if the project achieved its short- or long-term objective. It is important to acknowledge that this criterion of success or failure could be contentious, considering there could be two points of view—that of the farmer and that of the scientist and/or policy maker. In addition, it is difficult to have clear-cut criteria due to diversity of farmers and production circumstances in the tropics. As a first step in this study, a background of the strategies for genetic improvement, and the role of small ruminants in the traditional farming systems in the tropics is necessary, without which it would be difficult to evaluate a breeding scheme.

Section snippets

Improvement pathways

Conventionally, three main pathways have been considered for the genetic improvement of livestock: (i) selection between breeds (or strains), (ii) crossbreeding, and (iii) selection within breeds (or strains). The reader is referred to Baker and Gray (2003) for a detailed discussion on the application of these strategies in the tropics. For any of these strategies to be effective, it is important to have a clear view of what traits are important in small ruminants for the particular environment

Crop-livestock (agro-pastoral) production systems

Crop-livestock mixed farming systems comprise sedentary smallholder farmers carrying out mixed crop and livestock farming concurrently as the main activity. The mixed farming systems of the developing world contain about 64% of the small ruminants of the world (de Haan et al., 1996). These farming systems are a predominant feature and continue to develop with human population pressure increasing further (Steinfeld et al., 1996). Sheep and goat numbers are growing fastest in the mixed farming

Genetic improvement programmes

This section highlights key points of success or failure of within-breed genetic improvement strategies for indigenous small ruminants in the tropics. The criterion is if the improvement project achieved its objective. As indicated earlier, it is important to concede that this criterion of success or failure could be contentious, considering there could be two points of view—that of the farmer and that of the scientist and/or policy maker. Most genetic improvement programmes encountered tended

General discussion

In the current study, the published results on within-breed breeding programmes for indigenous stock was summarized. The number of publications was smaller than anticipated. This could be because utilization of indigenous tropical breeds is a recent awakening whistle, and most breeding programmes are incipient with little to report, if any (Iñiguez, 1998). It is, therefore, not surprising that most reports just stop at the need to focus on the use of indigenous breeds. It is also possible that

Conclusion

This study found a limited number of examples of sustainable breeding programmes utilizing the indigenous stock of small ruminants present in the tropics. The eminence of sustainable within-breed (population) improvement programmes in low-input livelihood-oriented production systems cannot be shunned. In principle, such breeding programmes must have expected outputs consistent with the producer's objectives and would be driven by incentives from the market to justify the producer's investment.

Acknowledgements

The authors are greatly indebted to The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) for financial support. Thanks to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI, Nairobi, Kenya) and Wageningen University (The Netherlands) for provision of facilities and support. This paper was written when the first author was on leave from Egerton University (Njoro, Kenya). Thanks to Professor John Gibson (ILRI-Nairobi, Kenya) and Ms. Chanda Nimbkar (University of New

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