Breeding Practices and Strategies for Genetic Improvement of Indigenous Goats in Ethiopia: Review

Abstract

This review was aimed to summarize and synthesize the fragmented information on breeding objectives, breeding practice of goat keeper’s and effectiveness of existing goat cross breeding program as an input for suitable and sustainable genetic improvement strategies. Goats in Ethiopia are found in all agro-ecological zones. However, the selection criteria, breeding objectives and breeding practices of goat keepers are not similar across all agro ecologies and production systems. In arid and semi-arid lowlands of the country, the primary breeding objective of most of goat keepers was milk yield while in highland parts of the country goat owners keep goats for income generation to be used for different purposes like emergency cases and different household expenses. Cross breeding of goats as productivity improvement program had been implemented for nearly twenty seven years in the country via different projects. However, the result indicated that, in comparison to indigenous breeds, the crossbreds were not productive under village conditions where over 83.9% of Ethiopian human population is found. The reasons for fruitless ending of some of the projects were lack of clear targets aligned to the production environments, incompatibility of the genotype with the farmers breeding objectives, management methods and absence of involvement of all stakeholders in the productivity enhancement program. Therefore, there needs to be a concerted effort to formulate and implement suitable and sustainable breeding program. Community- based breeding program on the adapted indigenous breeds seems to be undoubted to increase and sustain the productivity of goats in the countryso as to meet the demands of the ever growing human population.