Current situations of animal data recording, dairy improvement infrastructure, human capacity and strategic issues affecting dairy production in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

An online survey on the state of existing dairy data, dairy improvement infrastructure and human capacity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was undertaken with the aim of assessing whether the state of existing animal recording, dairy improvement methods and key issues facing dairy production together with means of addressing the issues differ among countries and regions of SSA. Respondents comprised experts and practitioners in livestock production and genetic resources from research institutes, animal breeding companies, universities, non-governmental organisations and government agricultural ministries. The main dairy farming system in which the respondents were involved was mixed crop-livestock system (30.2%), and this was mainly practised in the private land tenure system (46.3%). Data were analysed using linear model and paired Student t test in R software package. Respondents identified key issues affecting dairy production as poor genetic assessment of imported exotic breeds and crosses in Africa (62.3%), fluctuations in milk prices within both the formal and informal markets (50.9%), no comprehensive sire ranking systems (39.6%), housing and health management regimes which adversely affect milk yield (32.1%), poor market networks for dairy products (25.5%), poor feeding (13.3%), inadequate genetic technologies (9.4%) and poor animal performance recording systems (9.4%). Respondents emphasised the need for updated breeding policies, sire ranking systems, adequate farm management systems, capacity building, across-country collaborations and joint genetic assessments of dairy breeds found in sub-Saharan Africa. The current situation of dairy production though similar for the different countries, differed in order of emphasis and magnitude across the countries and regions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Exploration of production conditions: a step towards the development of a community-based breeding program for Butana cattle

“…Instead, farmers purely relied on recalled memory. The absence of performance recording has also been reported in previous studies for other indigenous cattle breeds (Opoola et al 2019;Roessler 2019). Major reasons associated with the lack of performance recording in most developing countries include the low awareness of potential benefits of recording to livestock owners, the research and development sector, and policy makers; problems of finding the right organization for animal recording; the challenge of attaining due participation; and insufficient technical know-how to implement and utilize records (Peters and Zumbach 2002).…”

Breeding strategies for improving smallholder dairy cattle productivity in Sub‐Saharan Africa

“…Implementation of any of the three breeding strategies assessed in the present study will depend on a wellestablished national herd recording scheme (Chagunda et al, 2006;Opoola et al, 2019). In the first instance, a relatively simple recording scheme of the five preferred traits of the smallholder farmers should be established.…”

Context Specificity and Time Dependency in Classifying Sub-Saharan Africa Dairy Cattle Farmers for Targeted Extension Farm Advice: The Case of Uganda

“…Like other farming systems, dairy production systems differ at regional and country levels in terms of technological and socioeconomic conditions [31]. Differences exist in current status of production systems, infrastructure, improvement techniques, productivity, and human capacity [32,33]. Given that different livestock farms can be heterogeneous between each other, yet still homogeneous within particular types [34,35], effective classification can inform extension services to facilitate agricultural development in SSA [36].…”