Breeding Program for Genetic Improvementof Begayit Cattle Breed

Abstract

Livestock play significant role in poverty alleviation and improving livelihoods of the rural households in Ethiopia. The traditional livestock production systems support 98% of the total milk supply and the pastoral areas, in particular, cover 90% of the meat export (carcass and live animal) of the country. The indigenous cattle breeds are the principal sources of meat, milk and other socio-cultural functions (FAO, 1999; Wondwosen, et al 20l3).These breeds are diverse with unique genetic attributes such as adaptation to heat and drought, tolerance to diseases, utilization of low-quality forages and desirable quality elements of their products. Despite the ever mentioned multi faceted benefits obtained from livestock, Ethiopia has not yet able to tap the economic worth of the sub-sector to the level of expectation as compared to that of other African countries. For instance, the current national average beef yield per animal of 108.4 kg for Ethiopia is by far less than 121 kg for the Sudan, 130 kg for east Africa, 146 kg for Africa, 163 kg for Kenya, and 200 kg for the world (FAO STAT, 2004).Ethiopia,in contrary to having the highest cattle population in Africa,has the lowest level of beef in terms of volume of the output, which is 27 and 7% lower than east Africa and the continent of Africa, respectively. The gap between demand and supply of livestock products in the country is expected to be widened because of high elasticity of demand for livestock products and increase in urbanization. Attainment of self-sufficiency in livestock products can only be achieved if livestock productivity is increased consistently by about 4% per annum. In spite of the long term research and development efforts,the focus on improving local breeds of livestock was very minimalin this country. However, it is recently noticed that giving due attention to the local breeds of livestock for improving the total factor productivity helps to enhance their contribution for increasing the export earnings of the country, apart from sustaining livelihoods of the rural households.Furthermore, this concern also aids to rescue numerous indigenous cattle breeds that are endangered of extinction for example Sheko breed in south western Ethiopia and Fogerabreed in north western Ethiopia. In response to the prepared roadmap document of modernizing meat animal production, there is a need to practically engage in the genetic improvement of the indigenous breeds of livestock through establishing open nucleus breeding scheme being assisted by modern biotechnologicalinterventions. Such kind of breeding program highlights the importance of implementing structured genetic improvement programmes by involving farmers, breeding organizations and marketing agents to generate desirable genotypes particularly for meat animal development in Ethiopia. Hence, the main objective of this manualis to show the developedbreeding goal,selection criteria and other procedures to serve as a guideline for the implementation of the genetic improvement program tailored to Begayit cattle breed.