Originally posted on ILRI news:
Anyone who’s ever looked around the family dinner table at a celebration and wondered at how such a disparate group of people could be related to each other understands—whether they realize it or not—one of the primary difficulties of developing animal crossbreeding programs. No matter if it’s cows or people,…
Category Archives: Genetics
Livestock genetics program works with farmers to boost nutrition in East Africa
In this TED talk, ‘How we can help hungry kids, one text at a time’, Su Kahumbu explains how iCow, an agricultural SMS platform she developed, is supporting livestock farmers and how animal products are helping meet the nutritional needs of children in East Africa. Continue reading
Training course strengthens NARS animal performance recording and genetic evaluation
The ‘LUKE-ADGG quantitative genetics and animal evaluation joint course’ brought together 18 participants from Ethiopia and Tanzania and was held at the ILRI campus in Addis Ababa on 5-9 June 2017. Continue reading
Livestock genetics and breeding – highlights from ILRI’s corporate report 2015–2016
Originally posted on ILRI news:
The adoption of new technologies that speed up genetic gains are leading to further improvements in livestock productivity. Ghibe valley, southwest Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann) The experience of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partner geneticists in 2015–2016 clearly demonstrates the positive benefits to smallholder farmers of the…
African Dairy Genetic Gains Program: Innovative private-public partnership for sustainable dairy productivity in Ethiopia and Tanzania
Originally posted on ILRI BioSciences:
Leveraging private and public partners is key to increased productivity in the dairy sector, according to a poster by scientist from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)-led project African Dairy Genetic Gains. The scientists explore some challenges facing dairy farmers within developing countries, illustrating how these dairy production difficulties can…
African Dairy Genetic Gains
African Dairy Genetic Gain (ADGG) is an International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)-led investment by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) that is developing and testing a multi-country genetic gains platform that uses on-farm performance information and basic genomic data to identify and provide superior cross-bred bulls for artificial insemination (AI) delivery and planned natural … Continue reading
Vision
ADGG’s vision is to see that African smallholder dairy farmers are continuously accessing more productive dairy genetics, breeding and farmer education services and other related input services enabling their farming enterprises to be profitable and competitive businesses. The following are the expected indicators of success from the stakeholders in the program: Private sector perspective Business … Continue reading
Outcomes
ADGG is working with initial core set of about 2,000 small and medium sized dairy farms in each country, with at least 2 dairy cows per farm for smallholders, and at least 10 cows for medium sized farms, and helping them initiate on-farm performance recording. The program will later recruit another 10,000 individual smallholder dairy herds in … Continue reading