Utilizing Livestock Biodiversity to Secure Livelihoods: Indigenous Sheep in pastoral systems

Concern Worldwide Livestock and Pastoralism Technical Workshop, 3 October 2012Namanga, Kenya

J.M.K. OjangoJ. Audho &A.M. Okeyo

Partners SLU: J. Philipsson, A. Näsholm B. Malmfors, E. Zonabend

Background

The demand for domestic livestock as food in developing countries is increasing

Source: Rosegrant et al., 2009

Background

• Nearly 1 billion (70%) of the world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people depend on livestock.

• Two-thirds of the world’s livestock keepers are rural women.

• Over 100 million landless people keep livestock.

(Ilri corporate report 2010-2011)

One of the Millennium Development goals was to reduce hunger by 50%

The Scenario in Pastoral areas

Climatic conditions in Eastern Africa are drastically changing

• Increase in frequency and intensity of droughts• Spread of vector borne diseases• Migration of people and animals in search of food and water• High mortalities of animals• Dependency of populations: Need for food aid

The Scenario in pastoral areas

Eastern Africa hosts > 40 million Sheep (FAO, 2010)Most are reared in Fragile systems

• Remote and vulnerable• Marginal land resources

Changes in pastures within one year

Questions that need to be addressed

How can we reduce the vulnerability and increase the resilience of communities within pastoral areas?

How can the assets of pastoralists be secured?

How can animal productivity within the rangelands be increased?

Livestock insurance Payment for environmental services Change livelihoods

Manage and treat diseases Identify and promote adapted breeds

Design and institute sustainable breeding programs Re-seed the rangelands Improve management and use of water resources

Pilot study that seeks to address the challenge of sustainable breeding programs

Indigenous sheep breeds exist across the East African Countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Somalia & Uganda

Well adapted to the environment, tolerate droughts

Have demonstrated genetic resistance to intestinal worm infections

Sheep in Pastoral Systems

Objectives of Pilot Project

To characterize the production system within which indigenous sheep are reared in Kenya

To understand current practices and roles of different gender regarding sheep rearing under pastoral systems

To determine the characteristics and traits of importance in sheep reared by the pastoralists

To develop, test and implement a basic sheep recording system within pastoral communities as an initial step to developing sustainable breeding programs

Basic building blocks for sustainable breeding programsSuitable indigenous, exotic or crossbred Animal

Genetic Resource for the environment and market Infrastructure organisation and management for

conducting the breeding programme to be sustainable under pastoral systems

Human resources and their development Financial and in kind resources Testing/evaluation scheme appropriate to be

sustainable Communication of results to and feed-back from farmers

Breeding programmes: the result of a systems approach with both short and long term benefits !

Participating farmers in the Pilot study

Pastoral livestock keepers in • Isinya: Ten Farmers, 810 animals• Amboseli: Seventeen farmers, 597 animals

A government sheep breeding station: Naivasha sheep and goat station

The ILRI Kapiti Ranch

Key project activities

Situation analysis • Institutions and infrastructure within the region to support

livestock production and animal breeding• Existing sheep production systems and practices within pastoral

areas of Eastern AfricaIdentify constraints to sheep production and seek

partnerships and collaborations to address the sameDevelop tools and systems to collate information and data

from livestock keepers

Tool developed for data capture and feedback to farmers

…Key project activities

Hold workshops to share information and provide training to livestock keepers on sheep breeding and management practices

Develop capacity of communities targeted to keep and use records on sheep productivity

Conduct regular monitoring and evaluation of sheep productivity

Generate feedback information to inform and support sheep production

Expected Outcomes

Improved Sheep production and productivity from pastoral systems

Reduced loss of livestock in pastoral production systems resultant from changing climatic conditions

Better livelihoods resulting from increased resiliance among pastoral livestock keepers

Objective of Collaborative project: Concern Worldwide-NIA-ILRI: Out-scaling Pilot Project

Identify the key constraints to access to and optimal utilization of improved sheep genetics, and determine context specific intervention options for improved sheep production under pastoral systems of Eastern Africa

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