The Need for Farmer Support and Record Keeping to Enhance Sustainable Dairy Goat Breeding in Tanzania and Malawi

Abstract

Improved dairy goats were introduced in Tanzania and Malawi to uplift nutritional standards and income of rural poor households. Breeding and management interventions were applied to ensure successful introgression of exotic genotypes into local breeds and environment. In Tanzania, 2% of goats are crossbreds of local and foreign goats. In Malawi, the exact proportion of purely local and crossbreds is not known due to poor recording. Norwegian Landrace (NL) and Saanen are the dominant breeds in Tanzania and Malawi, respectively, and their demand is increasing. In both countries, the greatest challenges are to supply goats with high genetic potential due to lack of proper breeding policy, lack of replacement bucks, and fast-generation turnovers. Increasing demand leads to high cropping rate and forces farmers to breed goats without systematic recording. A higher input/output system that requires more control is needed in order to produce better animals and obtain long-term benefits. Simple, manageable, and sustainable dairy goat breeding programs should be designed. The objective of this review is to recommend capacity building strategy needed to sustain the already seemed working technology under small-scale farming systems. For example, creation of community breeding structures and upgrading of local crossbreds through artificial insemination (AI) using elite bucks are greatly recommended. The AI was shown to be a promising genetic gain strategy for NL x local goats in Tanzania, after testing through simulation with 1000 does. It has been calculated that with records from 6 daughters per 30 young test bucks per year and selecting 3 best bucks as future elite bucks, a considerable genetic gain could be achieved. African environment conditions ensure genetically adapted future generations. For now, genetic improvement and community-based breeding program with buck rotation is suggested. Furthermore, needs for selection of replacement stock, animal identification, and performance records have been highlighted.

The demand of dairy goats is increasing each year in many African countries including Tanzania and Malawi. Their introduction has mainly been through importing exotic bucks and does, and through semen, which led to crossbreeding with local breeds. However, due to lack of support structures and capacity, breeding of these animals has not been appropriate; and for this reason, the performance has not been as expected. Breeding programs and protocols for dairy goats in both countries are lacking as most farmers breed goats based on their own knowledge. Scientific and farmer-based recording are lacking, and this makes it difficult to track the genetic composition of over 90% of the animals, which would have provided information about the breeding value (BV) of the dairy goats and enabled the institution of in-country programs to sustain imported and improved genotypes. Modern breeding practices are difficult for farmers to carry out themselves, without technical back-up from the government or research institutions. In this chapter, we review and discuss the dairy goat breeding options for developing countries using the cases of Tanzania and Malawi. We have considered the methods which can be adopted by the farmers with less financial investments.