Smallholders’ perceptions of goat farming in southern Benin and opportunities for improvement

Abstract

To be successful, initiatives to improve smallholder's goat production should directly address the needs and objectives of the keepers while promoting rational use of local genetic resources. This paper identifies the objectives, constraints and needs of goat farmers in southern Benin and discusses their relevance to the development of improvement programmes. Between November and December 2005, structured questionnaires, focus group discussions and participant observation were used to collect information from 38 goat farmers in two selected locations. Goats were kept mainly for sale whenever cash was needed. Traits related to reproduction, to behaviour, to health and to meat production were considered equally important and were ranked very highly by goat keepers. Increased net income per flock through increased number of marketable animals is the derived breeding objective from the trait analysis. Disease outbreaks resulting in high mortality, poor housing, and feed shortages were, in descending order, the most important problems. It was concluded that the development of initiatives to improve management practices is an overriding priority. It will lead to increases in productivity in the short term and foster farmers' participation in the development of long-term improvement strategies, which should include selection and controlled mating.

Breeding Objective, Selection Criteria and Breeding Practice of Indigenous Goats in Western Ethiopia: Implications for Sustainable Genetic Improvement

“…The ratio between breeding bucks of more than one year of age and their female counterparts was accordingly 1:12. This is different from reported results in other parts of Ethiopia (1:19;Nigatu, 1994;1:5;Belete, 2009 andGebreyesus et al, 2013), Mali (1:25;Wilson and Durkin,1988) and Benin (1:5; Dossa et al, 2007).The ratio observed in this study suggests that small numbers of breeding bucks are kept in the flock.…”

Production systems of Creole goat and their implications for a breeding programme

“…Farmers reared goats more for pleasure than for money. These results were quite different from those found in other tropical countries, where insurance and income were highly ranked as reasons for keeping goats (Jaitner et al, 2001;Dossa et al, 2007;Kosgey et al, 2008). Second, goat stealing and wandering dog attacks discouraged farmers.…”

“…These results are consistent with those of for goats in Martinique, of Jaitner et al (2001) for West African Dwarf goats in Gambia and with those of Kosgey et al (2008) for small ruminants in Kenya. They differed from the preference of the Djallonké goat breeder in Benin (Dossa et al, 2007) who considered as equally important reproduction, behaviour, health and meat production.…”

Effect of Sex of Desert and Taggar Kids on Growth Performance under Extensive System in South Kordofan State

“…(Elsharif, 2003). Goats are bred for meat and milk production (Dossa et al, 2007 andJimmy et al, 2010). Desert and Taggar goats were found in Western Sudan particularly in Kordofan states, they are meat types.…”