Monitoring of Sahiwal and Friesian cattle genetic improvement programmes in Kenya

Mpofu, N. and Rege, J.E.O. 2002. Monitoring of Sahiwal and Friesian cattle genetic improvement programmes in Kenya. AGTR Case Study. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

Livestock genetic improvement programmes aim at identifying superior animals for specific traits and allowing only these animals to be parents of the next generation. The use of genetically superior animals is expected to result in improvements in the efficiency of production, which in turn ensures that livestock products are more cheaply available to the human population. It is important to monitor breeding programmes in order to check if targeted improvements are realised for the desired traits and to quantify the impact of the programmes on genetic variation and diversity. Working examples of livestock improvement programmes in sub-Saharan Africa are, however, limited. The aim of this paper is to show the importance of monitoring genetic improvement programmes using the examples of an improvement programme for the Sahiwal breed in Kenya and a progeny testing scheme for Friesian cattle in Kenya. The paper is based on reports by Rege et al. (1992) and Rege and Wakhungu (1992) for the Sahiwal project and Rege (1991a and 1991b) for the progeny testing scheme for Friesian cattle.