Presented by Aynalem Haile, Tesfaye Getachew and Azage Tegegne at the Public talk, Arbaminch University, 11 April 2019

1. International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
icarda.org cgiar.org
A CGIAR Research Center
Genetic improvement of small ruminants in
Ethiopia have failed and need re-think
Aynalem Haile, Tesfaye Getachew and
Azage Tegegne
Public talk
Arbaminch University
11 April 2019

2. icarda.org 2
• Context
• Small ruminant genetic improvement
• Examples of failures
• Community-based breeding programs
• Success story
• Lessons
Contents

3. icarda.org 3
• Sheep and goat populations 30.7 and 30.2 million, respectively (CSA, 2017)
• Agriculture provides sustenance for more than 80% of the population and accounts
for 34.9% of GDP and 83.9% of total exports (NBE, 2018)
• Livestock sector contributes up to 25.6% of agricultural GDP and 10.5% of total
Ethiopian foreign exchange earnings (NBE, 2018)
• Ethiopia’s annual exports of cattle and sheep meat were valued at USD 79.13
million in 2012, while Botswana with a much lower stock number was able to reach
USD 150 million export earnings from beef alone
• Lower export level attributed to stronger local demand leading to higher prices,
lower meat output and differences in efficiency of meat production systems
Livestock contribution

4. Per capita milk and meat consumption (kg/year))
Country Milk Meat
Developed
countries
• Finland
• Sweden
• Netherlands
217.0
361.2
355.9
320.2
95.7
67.4
76.1
89.3
Developing
countries
55.0 31.6
Sudan 180.7 21.0
Kenya 120.0 14.3
Tanzania 42.0 10.0
SS Africa 31.0 10.9
Ethiopia 19.0 7.9
Source: FAOSTAT

5. 5
Demand and supply projections for red meat, chicken meat, milk and eggs
from 2013 to 2028, with and without investment interventions
Source: LMP, 2014

6. 6
Projections to 2028
Due to exploding demand due to rapid increases in population growth to 127 million
people and rising per capita income:
• Red meat consumption will grow by about 276% from 775,000 tons in 2013 to 2.9
million tons, with an average annual consumption of 24.5 kg per year. Meat deficit of
about 1.3 million, 53% MT
• Milk consumption will grow by 127% from 5 billion liters in 2013 to 11 billion liters.
• Domestic milk production expected to cover more than 71% of the total consumption
requirement representing a production-consumption gap of 3.2 billion liters. Milk
deficit of about 3,185 million litres, 29% of milk in 2028.

7. GTP2 Performance
The current situation
1. Live animal export
GTP II – 1.2million animals/474 million
USD/annum
Performance- 67million USD/2017 (14%)
1. Meat export
GTP II - 92 000 tone/500 million USD/year
Performance – 21000 tone-2017/101 m USD)
(20%)
• Quality ( the market requires tender, juicy and
less fat meat ~ eg for cattle 320 kg at 24
months/ currently > 4yrs
0
50
100
150
200
250
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Total
Total
0
100
200
300
400
500
200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017
ThousandsUSD
1.3. Imports of meat types (2006-mid,
2017)
Beef Lamb Swine Others Linear (Beef)

8. icarda.org 8
• High potential
• Huge demand
• Little consumption
• Little contribution at HH and national level
• We need to do something about it
Summary points

9. icarda.org 9
• A powerful tool for enhancing productivity of livestock is genetic
improvement
• Livestock development need to consider holistic approach, dictated by
value chain analysis
• Genetic changes are passed on to the next generation while changes
in husbandry practices have to be sustained continuously
• You also need the right genetics to respond to changes in feed, health,
husbandry
Why genetic improvement?

10. icarda.org 10
• Very little work by projects, Universities, Research centers
• Most efforts focused on import of exotic and crossbreeding
• Some on-station selective breeding
• Most were expensive failures
Small ruminant breeding programs

11. icarda.org 11
Examples of failures

12. icarda.org 12
Launched in 1989 and its implementation continued in three successive
phases until June 1997
The specific components of this package:
• organization of participating women into self-help credit and extension groups,
• improved forage development, tethered management, strategic supplementation,
• indigenous goat restocking on revolving credit,
• community-based animal health services,
• training of extension staff and participating women in improved goat management,
• genetic improvement of goats through crossbreeding
• close follow up and monitoring of activities
1. The Dairy Goat Development Program (FARM AFRICA)

13. icarda.org 13
• Selected participants were first provided with indigenous goats on credit after
having organised themselves into voluntary self-help groups, started developing
some improved forage and participated in extension training.
• Those who maintained continued interest in the programme then received F1
crossbred goats on credit upon repayment of at least 50% of the credit for local
goats.
• The aim of the DGDP had been to enable the farmers to maintain the crossbred
(Somali x Anglo-Nubian) and indigenous (Somali, Hararghe-Highland) goats
managed under improved level of care in terms of feeding, health care and housing
and produce better than the local flocks in traditional management.
• Maintain 50% exotic blood level in crossbreds for the prevailing level of
management (i.e. F1 does together with F1 bucks);
• The F1 does are distributed with 50% kid in-utero;

14. icarda.org 14
• Higher unit net benefits were obtained in both the crossbred and the indigenous goats
under improved management.
• Crossbred goats did not produce higher unit net benefits than indigenous goats based
on land, metabolic body weight and labour input.
• The greater weight losses of the crossbreds lead to a higher risk of reaching critically
low body conditions during the dry season.
• Shortages of crossbred breeding males also led to gradual backcrossing of the does,
resulting in an increasingly mosaic mix of crossbreds.
• As a result activities relating to the introduced technologies have declined after the
DGDP was phased out.
• The prevailing prejudgment in Ethiopia that indigenous goats do not adequately
respond to improvements in level of care compared to crossbred goats is not true.
• The case for the introduction of crossbred goats was further eroded by the practicalities
of maintaining an appropriate breeding programme.
Major results from the evaluation

15. icarda.org 15
Amed Guya/Debre Berhan Ranches
and other introductions through
projects

16. icarda.org 16
• Debre Berhan ranch – size 531 ha, 1500 animals all types
• Amed Guya – size 860 ha, 1100 sheep (most of them are local)
• Many importations of Awassi sheep from Israel for crossbreeding
and distribution of rams
• Dissemination was banned between 2001 to 2008
• Again very high level of Maedi-visna reported recently in Amed
Guya – Many positive animals (2300/3000) were destocked-
restocking again
• Sudden death – has been reported at Debre Berhan

17. 17
• During 1969 to 1974, a total of 96 ram lambs distributed
• During 1974 to 2001 more than 4000 disseminated from
both ranches
• Both ranches disseminated a total of 3088 crossbred sires
between the year 2008 and 2018

18. 18
❑ Dorper sheep were
introduced into the Jijiga
area (Somali Region) in the
late 1980s
❑ There was no on-farm
evaluation during that time
❑ All sheep were looted from
the ranch during the
political instability in 1991
❑ Dorper sheep again
introduced in 2006 and
2011- kept in diferent
stations
❑ Except Debre Berhan all
failed to mainained and
multiply required animals
Late 1980s, 2006, 2011

19. 19
Challenges
• Disease outbreak
• Management
• Physical characteristics of animals (colour, tail, ..)
• Adaptation problem
• Lack of proper breeding program

20. Community-based breeding
• Centralized breeding schemes, entirely
managed and controlled by governments have
failed
• Importation of improved breeds in the form of
live animals, semen, or embryos and
crossbreeding didn’t succeed
• Participatory breeding – decentralized plans
and programs
• Improvement programs carried out by
communities of smallholder farmers often at
subsistence level
• Considers proper farmers breeding objectives,
infrastructure, participation and ownership

21. 21
Steps for setting up CBBP

22. 22
Guidelines for setting up CBBP

23. icarda.org 23
• Rapid value chain analysis to identify challenges and opportunities
• Where genetics is a problem, CBBP implementation started
• Understanding the system as a whole
• Identification of population, communities and partners
• Baseline, animal identification, sire group formation,
• One-tier community breeding scheme
• Selection is carried out in the whole community sheep population. The villagers
select breeding rams from across all the flocks in the village taken as one big
breeding flock and use the selected rams communally
How do we do it???

24. How do we do it cont…
• Performance records:
• weight (birth, weaning, 6 and 12 months)
• wool yield??? by households and technicians
• number weaned; twinning
• Ram selection:
• candidates are ranked based recorded information (EBV)
• physical soundness (tail type, coat color, horns, conformation and general
appearance)
• A research team and a committee consisting of five community members
jointly screen the candidates

25. • Ethiopia, 3200 HH in 40 villages directly benefiting;
35 functional cooperatives
• Increased income (average of 20%) from CBBP in
Bonga, Horro and Menz
• Increased mutton consumption (average of 3 vs 1) in
Bonga, Horro, Menz
• CBBP is strategy of choice for small ruminants in
Ethiopia: LMP, GTP2, WB
Major outcomes/impact of CBBP in Ethiopia

26. 26
Genetic trend of body weight at birth (left) and 6 months (right) in Bonga
y = -0.00065x + 0.005
-0.020
-0.015
-0.010
-0.005
0.000
0.005
0.010
0.015
0.020
0.025
0.030
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
BirthweightEBV(kg)
Year
y = 0.2087x - 0.2732
-0.20
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
1.20
1.40
1.60
1.80
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
SixmonthsweightEBV(kg)
Year
Year Bonga Horro Menz
Overall 0.34±0.044 0.24±0.037 0.31±0.038
2010 0.21±0.194 0.10±0.076 0.00±0.097
2011 0.00±0.124 0.29±0.072 0.28±0.106
2012 0.14±0.144 0.26±0.157 0.17±0.112
2013 0.56±0.100 0.23±0.123 0.40±0.116
2014 0.57±0.081 0.33±0.085 0.53±0.107
2015 0.81±0.080 0.91±0.084 0.10±0.107
2016 0.28±0.081 0.00±0.082 0.60±0.105
2017 0.26±0.087 0.00±0.151 0.58±132

27. 27
Boka-Shuta cooperative in Bonga
Establish: 2010
Lambs: 19342
Members: 507
Flock size: 5989

28. 28
Cooperative Capital
Capita Source Amount (Et.Birr)
Initial capital
Revolving fund 33280
From Share 1380
Total 34660
Current Capital
Cash 651,000
Animal 331,500
Materials 533,700
Total 1,516,200

29. 29
Cooperative participation in Dev's
Participation Type Et. Birr
Bond 20000
Tax 59223
Road construction 23000
School construction 10000
Kebele office support (30 chair) 5000
Dividend 1133641
Total 1,250,864

30. 30
CBBP up/ outscaling
Where? When did it
start?
How many
villages?
Ethiopia 2007 More than 40
Uganda 2014 4
Tanzania 2017 2
Malawi 2014 6
South Africa 2017 2
Iran 2018 1
Sudan 2018 1
Tunisia 2017 1
Mongolia 2017 1

31. Key messages
• CBBP is technically feasible and economically rewarding technology
• institutional arrangements including establishment of breeders’
cooperatives
• capacity development of the different actors
• support for long periods with committed technical staff
• complementary services needed
• adaptation to different situations and production systems

32. Thanks a lot!!!