What women want? Gender, genetics and livestock improvement

Gender dimensions in Livestock breeding

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish

Improving animal genetics is the focus of one of the flagship projects of the Livestock and Fish CGIAR research program. It aims to maximize productivity – and profitability – ‘gains’ obtained from animal breeding and improvement.

It’s well-known that livestock can be bred for different priorities and objectives. In Australia, for example, sophisticated databases help farmers identify desired breeding traits and parameters so they can customize their sheep flocks for different markets.

Julie Ojango

In 2015, ILRI scientists leading projects in Nicaragua and Somaliland took a special interest in the (human) gender dimensions of their projects. Working with the Livestock and Fish Gender Initiative, livestock geneticists Julie Ojango and Karen Marshall decided to dig deeper to discover whether specific gender analysis integrated in their projects could help the communities they work with realize improved genetics gains in their animals.

The gender analysis, it was hoped, would highlight any differences…

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