Browsing by Subject "Breeding planning"

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Optimising breeding programmes with local pig breeds in North Vietnam considering functions of pigs for smallholders and logistic determinants
(2009) Rößler, Regina; Valle Zárate, Anne
Due to an increasing national demand for pig meat products in Vietnam, national development incentives focus on the intensification of the pig production. Still, the majority of the national pig herd is kept on smallholder farms. For a successful integration of smallholders into a market-oriented pig production, numerous constraints have to be overcome. One possibility is the development of village breeding programmes. This study uses an innovative approach, combining an institutional analysis of the pig breeding organisation and deterministic modelling to evaluate the technical appropriateness as well as organisational feasibility of alternative smallholder breeding schemes with the aim to identify an appropriate design of village breeding programmes for different smallholder pig production systems in Northwest Vietnam. In concluding, heterogeneous breed and trait preferences for local pig breeds of smallholders in different pig production systems have to be considered for the successful implementation of village breeding programmes. In addition, measures have to be adopted to improve factors that increase the genetic gain and to decrease high breeding costs. For the latter, a simplification of the currently complex and research-oriented performance testing scheme is recommended. The integration of smallholder pig breeding into regional and national structures is necessary to ensure the sustainability of village breeding programmes. Stratified crossbreeding schemes linking villages in different production systems together with the establishment of breeding cooperatives at village level and short food supply chains could help strengthen the currently weak links of smallholders to other breeding institutions and integrate several villages into a producer cooperative. Thus, small pig breeding populations could be enlarged and smallholders, particularly those in remote villages with poorly developed infrastructure, could be integrated into existing regional value chains for local pig meat products. Yet, limited financial and technical capacities of smallholders require the support from the government, particularly in the implementation phase. Implemented breeding programmes should be as simple as possible in order to reduce the risk for smallholders.