In favour?

The majority of people who commented on this question were in favour of establishing the resource, with some raising pertinent issues related to resource utility and design (see below). These participants were challenged to expand on how they thought the resource would be useful (responses are still coming in)

A minority of people did not feel the resource was a current priority – in relation to AnGR use they felt emphasis would be better placed on establishing basic, functional genetic improvement programs (linked to delivery systems), as well as capacity building on animal breeding / genomics in general.

Key points raised in relation to increasing the utility of the resource or on resource design:

• Design must lead to exciting and useful results generated from the early investment, to provide incentives for future investments
• Animals should be strategically sampled e.g. influential sires
• Link to phenomic characterization of animals will increase the utility of the resource

Main themes discussed on this topic to-date are:

The need for a holistic outlook on improving the performance of African livestock was stressed by many. Points raised here included:  the need for  supportive policy; the need for strong livestock product markets, as well as ability of livestock keepers to access these markers;  intervention package to address the various livestock production constraints (including on feed, health etc.); and means for farmers to access new technologies, such as public-private partnerships, amongst others.  In general, these issues are a subset of those commonly recognized by those working in the African livestock sectors.

Of the potential applications of genomics / genetics in African livestock systems, the only one discussed in any detail was genomic selection.  Here discussion centered around

1)Whether / how African livestock systems could capitalize on the opportunity of genomic selection, given current  system constraints.  Some example comments are:

• “Genomic tools are not a silver bullet. …(for)  any livestock improvement effort to bear fruit requires that the basics need to be in place i.e. the conventional livestock recording systems which are not existent in most developing countries”
• “Application of genomic tools is constrained by inefficient breeding programmes and policies in our African countries”
• “Current genomic tools offer a ray of hope but the basic infrastructure for conventional animal performance recording are still necessary”

2) How reference populations could be created – with the suggestion of using data from government institutions linked to data from (the often few) producers who record. The latter to assist in dealing with issues related to GxE

3) An example was given of a project on Kenyan dairy cattle (mainly cross-bred) where genomic prediction was undertaken (using GBLUP and Bayes C) based on about 1000 animals with phenotypes (milk records) and genotypes, with resultant accuracies of 0.3 to 0.4.

The need for recording schemes – with appropriate incentives for farmer engagement – was also a common theme. The only incentive explicitly discussed, however, was the use of records to help improve farm management decisions (seen as being more immediate than that related to generation of genetically improved animals). There was general agreement that farmers needed capacity building in recording, and that timely feedback (on the records) was important.

Updated 22nd August, 2016

See what others have contributed and contribute your insights and suggestions

Today we are launching our discussion. During the coming two weeks we will focus on:

• Current and future applications of genomics to cattle in Africa – in particular, which applications are likely to make a difference to poor livestock keepers and animal source food consumers, and what capacities and resources are required to achieve this.

• The potential to create a genomic reference resource on African cattle – a publically-available set of sequence information on cattle breeds in Africa,  and critically which breeds to prioritize for this.

You are already a member of the community. To join the discussion please log in at http://cattle-genomix.net

We look forward to your participation.

Karen Marshall

The International Livestock Research Institute & the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health.

For more on this potential initiative, please see this post on a ‘Genomics reference resource for Africa‘

We are currently discussing two topics in relation to this (and more topics will follow as the forum progresses):

(1)  Do you consider building a genomics reference resource for African cattle to be a worthwhile investment – why or why not?

Click here for a summary of contributions on this topic to-date

(2) What are the strategic research questions we can answer, or applications we can facilitate, with such a resource

Please submit your contributions on these by posting below. Use the comment box (scroll down) to add a new comment, or reply to existing comments using the reply button.

Some potential applications are given below (see also this post on the potential role of genomics for African cattle)

We are currently discussing two topics in relation to this (and more topics will follow as the forum progresses):

(1)  What (real) examples of the application of genomic or genetic information to African livestock production systems (regardless of species) do we have to-date, and what was successful or not successful about these, and why

Click here for a summary of contributions on this topic to-date

(2) Which genomic or genetic applications have the most potential to positively impact on the rural poor in Africa – in the near future and the longer term.

Click here for a summary of contributions on this topic to-date

(3) Is phenomics – the ability to measure livestock performance – a bigger challenge than genomics in African livestock systems and, if so, how can we increase phenomic capabilities

Please submit your contributions on these by posting below. Use the comment box (scroll down) to add a new comment, or reply to existing comments using the reply button.