A review on the pradox of goat characterizations and their consequences on the development of the goat sector in Ethiopia

摘要

Several goat characterizations and development projects have been undertaken since the beginning of goat research in Ethiopia. Hence, it is important to review their consequences on the development of the goat sector by assessing the outputs generated to-date. The purpose of this review was to provide an overview on the paradox of goat characterizations and their consequences on the development of the goat sector in Ethiopia. From this review, it is clear that numerous phenotypic and genetic characterizations and goat development projects, aimed at improving productivity of indigenous goats, have been undertaken for the past two decades. A wealth of information and a number of technologies have been generated. Some of the characterization works haven been published in different journals. However, there are also gaps in goat characterization efforts and development works that need to be addressed. The primary attempt in phenotypic characterization should be to categorize goats at the district level into one of the recognized breeds by comparing their characteristics with those described nationally and regionally. Only limited activities on genetic characterization in general and gene level characterization in particular have been conducted on indigenous goat breeds. Most of the implemented goat development projects lacked clear targets aligned to the production environments and farmers’ objectives, functional institutional synergies and exit strategies. This calls for a restructuring of the entire goat characterization and research and development platform in the country.