Utilizing Livestock Biodiversity to Secure
Livelihoods: Indigenous Sheep in pastoral systems
Concern Worldwide Livestock and Pastoralism
Technical Workshop, 3 October 2012
Namanga, Kenya
J.M.K. Ojango
J. 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?
 Livestock insurance
 Payment for environmental services
 Change livelihoods
How can the assets of pastoralists be secured?
 Manage and treat diseases
 Identify and promote adapted breeds
How can animal productivity within the rangelands be
increased?
 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
Sheep in Pastoral Systems
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

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 programs
Suitable 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 Africa
Identify constraints to sheep production and seek
partnerships and collaborations to address the same
Develop 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

Thank you
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