Small ruminants breeding workshop

EIAR/ATA/ICARDA Workshop on small ruminant breeding programs in Ethiopia

Debre Birhan, 17-18 December, 2015

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Workshop Objectives:

• To review and synthesize lessons learned in sheep genetic improvement activities so far,
• Design a detailed plan for small ruminants genetic improvement and dissemination of improved genetics
• Identify enabling environment for the breeding programs to succeed
• Agree on roles, responsibilities and the timetable for the implementation of the breeding programs

Agenda

Day 1: 17th November

Time	Activity	Responsible
8:30	Registration Logistics	EIAR/ATA/ICARDA
9:00	Welcome and introduction	Facilitator
9:30	PRESENTATION]	Joram Mwachero
10:00	PRESENTATION]	Solomon Abegaz/ Solomon Gizaw
10:30	PRESENTATION]	Workneh Ayalew
11:00	coffee	EIAR/ATA/ICARDA
11:30	PRESENTATION]	Tesfaye Getachew/ Ayele Abebe
12:00	PRESENTATION]	Solomon Gizaw
12.30	PRESENTATION]	Aynalem
13:00	Lunch
14:00	Making sense of priorities and modalities	Facilitator
15:15	Coffee
15:45	Group formation and group work template Group work on design improvement strategy for four sheep (Begait, Menz, Horro and Bonga) and two goat (Abergelle and Arsi-bale) breeds	Facilitator
17:00	Checking in on progress	Facilitator
17:15	Close

Day 2: 18th November

8:30	Recap Check-in on progress with groups	Facilitator
9:00	PRESENTATION] * Enabling environment for success of breeding programs PRESENTATION * (TENTATIVELY0 Management practices (focus on feeds and health) to make breeding programs work)	* Zeleke / Mourad * Girma Tesfahun / Barbara R * (Getinet Assefa)
10:00	Group work (continued) - including coffee break	Groups
12:15	Lunch
13:15	Plenary: presentations and critique: Abergelle --> Arsi-Bale --> Begait --> Bonga --> Menz --> Abergelle See group reports: * Abergelle - See the group work resultsbr Arsi Bale - See the group work resultsbr Begait span styleline-height: 1.5- See the group work results and presentation/spanbr Bongaspan styleline-height: 1.5 - See the group work results/spanbr Menz span styleline-height: 1.5- See the group work results and presentation	Facilitator
14:45	Fine-tuning	Facilitator
15:30	Next steps, ways forward and closing
16:15	Close	Facilitator

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Notes of the meeting

Opening welcome by Barbara Rischkowsky (ICARDA)

We have worked on the small ruminants breeding program for the past few years. The new Ministry of Lviestock and Fishery shows that this is important for Ethiopia’s development in the next 5 years so we want to take opportunity of this to put our work in the pipeline. This specific workshop will look at developing a SR breeding program. This workshop is a ‘workshop’ so we’ll have presentations to introduce topics but the major role is to work in intensive working groups – we want to have building blocks for a working plan. We are all friends so I hope we can do this informally and speak out. We are facing a gender issue in this room (Barbara is the only woman in this workshop). If you face any problem we’ll try to facilitate these. (Welcome by Tadelle Dessie) I hope to come up with something concrete out of these two days. (Welcome by Workneh Ayalew) Let me get a little technical apart from saying welcome on behalf of ATA and ILRI. It gives me pleasure to see this group come up and see what we can do on genetics. We used to be lone voices but now we have a good number. I can name names that can drive this agenda in isolation but we have gained momentum ever since. This inspires me. 25 years back we were hitting the wall and it was tough. Now we can get together and make it happen.

Introduction by Aynalem Haile (ICARDA)

Good morning. I will introduce the objectives and agenda. We do a lot of breeding programs across CGIAR but we want to synthesise knowledge on this area. We had 2-3 workshops organised by ATA in D/Zeit where 6 priority SR were identified. We want detailed design for these 6 Shoat breeds. We want to identify the enabling environment for these to work. At the end of the workshop we’ll try to agree on roles and responsibilities with a clear timetable. We need to have a clear plan of action of who does what when. To achieve this we have some agenda: This morning a few presentations about the past work, then we’ll also focus on cross-breeding work in Ethiopia. Then breeding structures will be introduced and we’ll hear about community-based structures etc. Aynalem introducing the template – 5-6 areas to report on.

Presentations – batch 1

Presentation Getinet (documented for Q&A by Ewen)

Questions - Q: What breeds would you recommend: - A: For goats, kaffa and Abergelle (?); for sheep, Washera and Gumuz

Presentation Workneh (documented for Q&A by Tadele)

Q&A: - Q: Your data shows that we cannot distinguish goats/ sheep categories in ET? - A: Not as such –

• o So where do we go from here?
• o A: Looking at diversity, there’s high variability. But there’s low variability?? We found at least 1 breed that is different. But we can’t say there are groups. I tried to groups the humid, highlands, lowlands etc. but they share very high proportion of genetic material because the level of migrations is high for goats. Compared with sheep, their migration is very high. I tried to investigate with social anthropology and I found that human pop movements from N to South, the other way around etc. was very high. Those people who moved from S to N moved with their animals. They settled around lake Tana, they moved with their borena cattle and called them Tana Lake Boran. Till now we were in doubt about the zebu line of Fogera but it appears it could be Boran. A paper established that. It’s most unlikely people moved with other animals except cattle. The other thing is the human genetics. Recently a UK guy did his PhD on mitochondria in ET and he found little significance between different types. Finally human biology also shows that reality in livestock

- Q: Can one argue that charac. of goats in ET is futile because we can’t identify unique breds? - A: I didn’t include morphological elements. If I had we would have info about conservation. At this time we have a population, not breeds. But Kaffa has to be focused on. We suspect it is trypps-tolerant. It’s got a big size and if you go with other goats to that area they may not survive. West South part of ET is influenced by the West-African dwarf goat, which is trypano-tolerant. Ditto in Gumuz. Kaffa goats should be focused on. - Q: There’s less differentiation with goats but it doesn’t mean there are not significant differences e.g. markers we use which may not be associated with functions. The average FSD value is around 0 or negative. Let’s do a regional FST based on the regions. Difference between menz and horro sheep is very little but there’s clear differences in adaptation. There’s evidence that Dorset breed is different to other breeds despite little FST difference. - A: Lowland/highland goats: I took the lesson from goats above 3000m of altitude. We can look at the difference of adaptation there. - Q: Would you change the name of Barka to Begait? - A: Yes we can change it. In ET it’s been changed to Begait but biologically there’s no difference. Nubians are Nubian because they come from Sudan but we don’t need to change the names. We can change that for political reasons but the paper about this is under process. Nubian goats are named Nubian but they’re not Begait. - Q: Re: Abergelle and Kaffa, I hope you go through my thesis. Abergelle and Kaffa are distinctly shown. From the diversity point of view Abergelle stands first. What do you think is the reason behind that? - A: We use different markers e.g. mine is a SNP panel. The number of markers is very high so that’s a potential source of differences. It may not be possible to suggest separate populations based on the bootstrap value. To say breed you need to have ??% of difference.

Second batch of presentations

Presentation by Tesfaye (Q&A covered by Workneh)

Notes from the Q&A session on the presentation by Tesfaye Getachew (crossbreeding) Q1 (Tadelle): One of your recommendations about sustaining improvements through crossbreeding is to develop composite synthetic breed; how long do you think it takes to develop such a synthetic breed? Answer (Tesfaye): Once the appropriate blood level is determined, it may take 3 to 4 generations of selective inter-se breeding to stabilize the population level characteristics of the synthetic breed. Q2 (Tadelle): In terms of defining the size of synthetic breed population for the target beneficiary population, how can the target beneficiary population be determined? Who are the targets? Answer: Perhaps not realistic to precisely determine the target population from the start; perhaps appropriate to start with a small immediate target beneficiary population and allow the size to grow over time as farmers develop their interest on the synthetic breed. Critical is the interest of farmers themselves on the new breed. Q3 (Tesfaye Alemu): One of your recommendations was to promote the 37.5% Awassi crosses compared to the 50%? Then you also recommended the synthetic crossbred; how specific are these? Answer: The 37.5% crosses performed better than the 50% in Menz where the 75% Awassi crosses were distributed, but in South Wollo the 50% crosses proved more popular. Maybe this has to do with the level of management and environment. The reported contemporary comparison was just looking at the prevailing crossbred population in the study area and was not based on a comprehensive assessment of various possible breed compositions in the crossbreds. Q4 (Asrat): you talked of model breeding villages; what are these? Answer: In light of the prevailing scarcity of crossbred breeding rams that are mostly supplied by research centres and two sheep multiplication ranches, an alternative source of crossbred rams was considered to be individual sheep farmers themselves. Some villages stood out in the management and multiplication of crossbred sheep and were able to supply good crossbred breeding rams of various lood levels. Such villages can be supported further to become preferred suppliers of such crossbred rams. This is by encouraging them to continue to breed superior crossbred rams for long periods, promoting group management of 75% crossbred rams and assigning enumerators to maintain accurate pedigree records in the villages to be able to select well known and managed ram lambs and even ewe lambs for breeding purposes. Q5 (Tesfaye A): How can the observed progress be sustained without the risk of inbreeding depression? Answer: It is necessary to maintain 1,000 to 2,000 crossbred flocks with large average flock sizes, especially for the purpose of developing a stable synthetic crossbred population. Q6 (Aynalem): Except the success in South Wollo, most of the sheep and goat crossbreeding initiatives have been expensive failures. What was the reason for success in South Wollo? Answer: the observed failures had little to do with the crossbreeding technology itself; faulty and incomplete crossbred ram disseminations schemes were to blame. For instance, the 50% Awassi crossbred rams have been disseminated throughout the country regardless of production systems and agro-ecologies and level of subsidies. The very dispersed and haphazard nature lacked a clear breeding structure; the need for supplying replacement crossbreds rams was not thought through. The quota system of thinly spreading these rams was not helpful. Only a few villages in North Shewa and South Wollo emerged as very keen to continue to maintain and breed crossbred rams. In fact during the shutdown of research and multiplication centres in the wake of the Maedi Visna outbreak on the Awassi crossbreds, these villages continues to supply crossbred rams with unknown Awassi blood levels. It is however important to clearly define the strategy for maintaining the crossbred breeding population such as through terminal crossing, upgrading or stabilizing the exotic blood level. Q7 (Aynalem): How best can a continuous supply of crossbred rams be secured? Answer: Development of a stable synthetic population is the practical answer. But there is also need to have in place a clear performance evaluation scheme. Q8 (Aynalem): What level of exotic blood level in the crossbreds is considered acceptable by sheep farmers? Answer: Level of management and confidence of the farmers in the crossbreds determine success on any crossbred option. Farmers need continual training to improve their management and they do respond to effective technologies. Market opportunities are also important, as is the case in South Wollo. Suggestion: Aynalem suggests a sideline discussion on how to draw lessons from the success of Awassi crossbreeding in South Wollo and Chacha in North Shewa. A targeted survey and discussions with farmers may be needed. *

Presentation by Aynalem (Q&A covered by Ewen)

- Q: You can’t changed the environment but is that a blanket recommendation or do you leave room for cross-breeding? - A: I would leave some room. Our environment is not uniform. One of the successes with cross-breeding is ?? and people say it’s a very good area but I think Cross-breeding could be useful when the environment can support it and when we can design appropriate strategies at farmer level with different levels of exotic ?? When we have a strategy on this then it’s fine. In India, there are popular synthetic animals. They had a breeding programs between exotic breeds and at some stage they were confused about the level of exotic breeds. There is a mixture of breeds so they were wondering how they could stabilize. - Q: Do you have medically improved cross-breeding? - A: In Bonga it’s easy because it’s controlled but in Menz when we do the ram group we make sure we allot a particular ram for a group of females. It’s not an absolutely clear pedigree.

• o It’s better for Bonga to select the ram at the nucleus. You keep the top 2 rams at the nucleus and distribute that in the communities
• o à Yes, but our approach is community-based and it’s completely different. It’s difficult but it’s working. With nucleus approaches we didn’t reach tangible results. There are very few success stories on nucleus schemes for small ruminants so we looked for other approaches. It’s difficult to gather whole populations. We should discuss this at this workshop as it’s a request from the State Minister. We should focus on 6 breeds etc. and whatever we learn from it we should apply elsewhere.

- Q: The Bonga community-based breeding program. I think this should be a best experience for us, not just for Amhara but for all regions. Is there any documentation about this? - A: Talk to Asrat, he convinced the regional government who put 14 mio Birrs in constructing infrastructures for this and now there’s 6 cases led by research and extension.

Presentation Solomon A (documented for Q&A by Shiferaw)

- Q: - A:

Sense-making session

(In an attempt to better grasp what we had heard from all the presentations we ran a sense-making session, reflecting in turn and in small groups about a) what we heard b) what were implications of this and major hypotheses we could draw out of that and c) what we see as steps forward emerging from that).

Consolidated results of the sense-making

How to go forward while avoiding business as usual?

• Inputs for breeding policy
• Revise breeding programs with the area
• Make government aware of genetic improvement programs
• Develop a coherent strategy
• Institutionalise the strategy
• Align with existing policies/strategies
• Clear, 'sellable' strategy document for 6 breeds
• Continue own programs with ranches (Bonga)
• Develop an action plan
• Develop policy briefs
• Develop a professional platform for breeding
• Include small ruminant breed improvements in strategies
• Take existing success stories to scale
• Develop a fund-raising plan
• Institutionalizing --> Accountability + who's driving. Find a champion at high level
• Technical champion: DBARC
• Act fast and talk to state minister (MOLF) via Workneh
• Identify a long term policy champion
• Meet with the 9 regions and introduce this work then and at quarterly meetings (livestock)
• Work with the Samara Goat Centre
• National coordination about goat research has to be involved (Ato Mohammed)
• Align, yes, but also propose changes

Specific results of the sense-making (one working group)

What? (What did we hear) - Breeding strategies for crossbreeding and selective breeding and evidence of their importance - Performance evaluations for exotic and indigenous under intensive and extensive conditions - Challenges and objectives of breeding programs - Different breeding schemes (open nucleus schemes and one tier community-basedbreeding) - Recommendation for best mix of Awassi and Menz - Proposed genetic improvement strategies for Highlands divided into higher and low potential Highlands - Breeding programs involving cooperatives require full participation of all farmers - Many existing initiatives for SR genetic improvement - Six major breeds of national importance identified - Cooperatives important element of breeding programs

So What? (What does it mean?) - There should be no blanket recommendations; instead options need to be developed for each context (option x context) - Joint well-coordinated efforts of partners, NARS, Ministries, Government - Full participation of smallholder farmers in the breeding programs, e.g. to identify breeding objectives, trait preferences - Scalability of programs is very important - Many failures of crossbreeding with exotics, inclusion of indigenous breeds in breeding programs is important - As there are success stories of SR breeding programs, regional agricultural strategies should not focus on cattle only - Cooperatives are important elements of SR improvement programs and need to be supported at district and regional level - Too many scattered attempts at characterization of breeds, better coordination is required - Crossbreeding need to be implemented jointly with feed and health improvement programs to exploit the genetic potential - National coordination and breeding policies need to be strengthened

Now what (what are we going to do?) - Capacity development programs for relevant stakeholders - Design breeding programs from farm to government level - Design agroecology specific programs - National fund raising strategy is required - Include SR breeding programs into regional agricultural strategies

Presentations day 2: Barbara Rischkowsky (ICARDA)

- Comment: Community-based breeding programs were not insensitive.

• o Yes but the evaluators coming from a gender-sensitive approach would ask how many women are registered members etc. and the percentage was super small. The benefit was at household level but there also issues with the marketing but it’s the men going to market and the women have to trust that the men bring back the full amount. Women don’t have access to the market, it’s a social norm. But we could target women more actively because when we do the selection, a number of superior animals were chosen by women, showing they could be quite successful breeders – but at the moment it’s hidden
• o The issue is when the hh is headed by a man, because of ownership etc. it’s a male-dominated system. It’s difficult to bring women to the forefront.
• o Yes but what would be useful actions supported by people who have done this to at least slowly encourage that it’s not always the husband who’s the member etc. Is the norm the only way or are there other ways to encourage equity without going against the culture? Nowadays gender is introduced in some areas where it’s not helpful but it makes us think about what could be done. E.g. we worked in Afghanistan and found ways of encouraging women by going around the system and slowly letting the system allow us to build women cooperatives etc. with the full recognition of the elders, husbands etc. and women spent a more active role. We haven’t thought actively about it.

- Q: Talking about institutional arrangements, what is the minimum flock size and geog coverage to start a CBBP (because size matters)? We need to have a kick-off program. - A: I don’t agree on the flock size, as it really depends on where we are working. The community using one big flock to prevent people with small flocks may not be as successful as a community that has one ewe that is very well taken care of. If you use the whole community for flock selection that’s useful. The minimum flock size may matter in places where there’s strict control of flocks. The question is how many animals can you produce if you have 60 hh’s with 10 females each. But that depends on the system.

• o There may be superior breeding ewes somewhere but farmers struggle with breeding rams.
• o Yes but once there is distribution the whole community needs to have access to the ram. If 10 hhs use a communal grazing area they only need 1-2 breeding rams. In neighbourhood systems it works well. That’s the kind of issues you look into in your breeding schemes. That’s why we need to look carefully into our breeding schemes. Young males are the problem – after 6-7 months they already mate and these are lousy animals.

- Q: There is the scientific approach and the system we work with. Interest in the nucleus flock etc. We need to discuss these issues here to find out the most feasible scheme to accommodate both the scientific approach and the political system. - A: If you look at DBARC, we talk about kick-starting breeding programs etc. and it can be much quicker than that. If you have superior rams and you kickstart your program with them it can be an advantage. You could also use them as an AI station. What you do is to buy the best of the best of communities and then serve communities with the physical ram stationed there. You can use the station for training also etc. But we have to be careful about the kind of animal you have.

• o Follow up on this means we need to discuss this with those people and discuss the results of this workshop with them.
• o I’m not against on-station nucleus. Some developments in Argentina had parallel efforts in station and among farmers. We need to influence the people that say the nucleus can be good if carefully managed and with constant investments, good flock size etc.

Presentations from working groups

Abergelle

– unclear institutional arrangements

Arsi-Bale

- Q: Where is the link between the station flock and the community? - A: The station flock is currently in Adami-Tulu but we don’t plan on continuing with this - Q: Do you have to distinguish between high and low lands? And how will the different institutions you mention work with each other – will there be an over-arching institution to take care of coordinating this so not everyone works on their own site? - A: We propose A-Tulu to be coordinating centre - Q: The sites selected, are they related to? - A: Adami-Tulu ones yes. - Q: Establishing cooperatives: I see universities playing a role but I don’t see district offices or zonal offices of livestock and fisheries etc. What will be their role? - A: These actors (mentioned in the plan) facilitate but they will establish them with the support of such offices. - Q: How is Awassa Uni involved given they have a different mandate? - A: Awassa will be responsible for Awassa zone, perhaps Alaba etc, but not going to trans-boundary areas. - Q: Cooperative-based animal health workers is a very delicate area; currently the policy is only in pastoral areas so do we mean to discuss that in detail? - A: We are proposing to go that way but it depends on governmental policies and how much we can challenge such policies. - Q: What about market linkages? - A: We will take care of that – we are going to link them with surrounding exporters etc. - Q: The last point needs to be addressed very carefully, in relation with the breeding objectives – it’s not just about what the community wants but also what the market wants and the choice of breeds depends on market demand. Have there been market studies to establish the demand for certain traits? - A: Yes market studies are there and MSc students can do that. That’s general and cross-cutting for all species/breeds. So far we haven’t addressed the demand side but have been looking at the producer side. Generally that is probably the way we should approach this in the future.

Begait presentation

- Q: Nucleus based in one of the centres – these are very complicated structures that could be difficult to handle - A: Humora ranch and nucleus should be linked as one nucleus from the start. The crucial part is the investors who own 1000-5000 shoats. Most of the Begait sheep population is in the hands of those commercial farms so we shouldn’t exclude them. In order to involve these we should incorporate them in the structure. - Q: You also propose that there’s supply only for starter rams, not for all. - A: ?? It’s possible to incorporate a selection and recording under commercial farms but we can’t assess the sustainability of this as it’s for commercial purpose.

• o But who should we support as researchers for the nucleus? In my view the nucleus should support the farm flocks rather than the commercial flocks…
• o We tried to assess the potential and there are commercial farmers and we have nuclei and ranches. There are existing opportunities for Begait so we tried to address these opportunities especially for commercial farmers as multiplication centres for the starter rams. Then from the commercial farmers we can introduce selected rams to the village and to the highland areas through cross breeding. We focused on Humora site for sustainability. This breeding scheme arose from the Begait production plant – they wanted to improve SH systems, commercial systems and then improving. There is a loose connection with the village because of ?? We hope the village program will be self-sustained and the nucleus will primarily focus on the commercial system. This scheme is designed here but should be assessed for genetic gains.

- Q: I like the options explore but my worry is that I know some of the commercial farms and the plot sizes they have are not large. How do you see big rams there? - A: Of course it’s difficult but through creating awareness we can bring selected rams from commercial farms.

• o This sounds like commercial farmers have no demand for breeding rams.
• o They have their own breeding flocks but they want demand.

- Q: The bulk of Begait are in the hands of investors? This can’t be! - A: Info I have about this area is that the proportion of high flocks of sheep is in the commercial sectors. - Q: What is the population size estimate for Begait? - A: I don’t know the exact flock size in that area but in total including all in that zone it’s about 1.5 mio. - Q: Going from coop villages to ranch – what type of rams? Which rams are not going from village to nucleus? - A: We look at performances within cooperatives and then… - Q: You want to get starter rams but the activity seems to be continuous - A: Yes info from the coop breeding flocks will continue. Your broken line should be a solid line there. - Q: The regional gov’t is developing a breeding strategy for cattle and shoats and they have a nucleus breeding scheme with clearly defined multiplier flocks placed strategically to develop genetic gains faster. We need to tap into this.

Bonga presentation

- Q: Your ‘dispersed nucleus’ is not one-tier but 2-tier nucleus. And this scheme should be evaluated. - A: Ok indeed it’s accepted. - Q: If you plan to link meat animals to market, what animals – from the culled ones? - A: From the culled ones, not selected for breeding. - Q: You said a ram will serve for 2 years – at the same station or moving around stations? - A: We can have one ram serve 1 group and then after 2 years it will be sold to communities. Total service is 2 years but serving one community each year. - Q: Genetic gains? - A: We are looking at data and the results will be ready very soon but from preliminary results there are genetic gains. Now the approach is the same as for Menz. - Comment: Bonga being the first serious initiative showing results on the ground, I think it’s about time to start a breeding society. The breeding societies are going into a union. If we don’t get this right the concept of breeding society will disappear. I hope that in GTP this will be the first one we have. It’s not a cooperative union but a breeding society. 3-4 of us need to think it through.

• o It’s about looking at the appropriate over-arching structure and not apply a norm that could jeopardise the technical purpose. Would a cooperative union jeopardise the function?
• o à Our original idea is to form a union – because in ET we don’t have experiences with breeding societies – and we can include technical issues etc. Institutionally it’s easier to set up a cooperative union.

Ways forward

• Finalize group work with champions: 25 Dec. 2015

Abergelle: Bekagn Arsi-Bale: Tesfaye Begait: Shishay Bonga: Metsafe Menz: Ayele Develop an email list for those (Shiferaw / Aynalem)

• Share draft document with the Horro group: 01/01/2016 (Aynalem / Barbara)
• Full workshop documentation: Jan 2016 (Ewen / Shiferaw)
• Share summary of group work collection: Mid-January (Aynalem / Solomon, then Barbara, Workneh, Solomon A)
• Submit papers based on work/presentations: 19 Jan. 2016 (all)
• Present this work at inter-regional meeting: Mid/end Jan 2016 (Asrat)
• Present this to MOLF state minister and EIAR: late Jan. 2016 (Workneh)
• Share summary with all regional bureau heads: Jan. 2016 (Workneh)
• Write success story briefs: March 2016 (Tesfaye --> Wollo) - Workneh, Aynalem, Barbara
• Include Samara Center in communications (Aynalem)