| ARJASR |
Academic Research Journal of
Agricultural Science and Research |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Academic Research Journal of Agricultural Science and Research Vol. 6(2), pp. 97-104. February, 2018. ISSN: 2360-7874 DOI: 10.14662/ARJASRD2017.086 Full Length Research Dairy Cattle Breeding Program in Ethiopia: Lesson Learned from Case Studies in the Tropical Countries Direba Hunde
Holetta Agricultural Research Center, P. O. Box 31, Holetta, Ethiopia. E-mail: direbahu@yahoo.com
Accepted 28 November 2017
Dairy farming has been considerably contributing for family nutrition and income generation in Ethiopia. Despite large cattle population and favorable climatic conditions, the self-sufficiency in milk production is not yet attained in Ethiopia. The aim of this study was to assess the dairy cattle genetic improvement in Ethiopia and draw lesson from tropical countries. The genetic improvement was mainly based on crossbreeding and the crossbred cows produce about 3-5 folds of milk yield as compared to the traditional production system. However, the low number (1% of the national cattle population) and fluctuation in performance of crossbred dairy cattle in Ethiopia could point out that there was a lack of appropriate breeding programs for sustainable genetic improvement. In some tropical countries such as in India, Australia and Brazil, there were successful long-term breeding programmers which significantly increase the number of improved dairy cattle and milk production of the countries. Based on lesson learned from tropical countries the genetic improvement efforts in Ethiopia can be further enhanced by reinforcing the crossbreeding activities by appropriate breeding programs. Furthermore, community involvement, inputs and output delivery system and human and infrastructure capacity needs to be improved to run the long term breeding program smoothly.
Keywords: crossbreeding, dairy, genetic improvement.
How to cite this article: Hunde D (2018). Dairy Cattle Breeding Program in Ethiopia: Lesson Learned from Case Studies in the Tropical Countries. Acad. Res. J. Agri. Sci. Res. 6(2): 97-104
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
