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Community-based breeding programs (CBBPs) have shown, at pilot scale, to be effective and beneficial in achieving genetic progress and in improving livelihoods of smallholder communities. In Ethiopia 134 sheep and goat CBBPs were operational producing their own improved rams and bucks. Based on experience the implementation of further programs is possible with appropriate private and public support. A different challenge is the efficient dissemination of the improved genetics produced in current CBBPs to create population-wide economic impact. We present a framework applied to the Ethiopian Washera sheep breed to meet this challenge. We propose the establishment of a genetic improvement structure that supports a meat commercialization model based on the integration of community-based breeding program cooperatives, client communities and complementary services such as fattening enterprises. We calculated that the recently established 28 community-based breeding programs in the Washera breeding tract can provide genetically improved rams to 22% of the four million head. To reach the whole population 152 additional CBBPs are needed. We simulated the genetic improvements obtainable in the current 28 CBBPs assuming realized genetic progress in CBBPs of a similar breed and calculated the expected additional lamb carcass meat production after 10 years of selection to be 7 tons and the accumulated discounted benefit 327 thousand USD. These benefits could be increased if the CBBPs are linked to client communities by providing them with improved rams: additional meat production would be 138 tons with a value of 3,088 thousand USD. The total meat production of the existing Washera CBBPs was calculated at 152 tons and the joint meat production of CBBPs if integrated with client communities would be 3,495 tons. A full integration model, which includes enterprises purchasing lambs for fattening, can produce up to 4,255 tons of meat. We conclude that Washera CBBPs cooperatives can benefit from a higher level of organization to produce population-wide genetic improvement and economic benefits. Unlike in the dairy and chicken industries, for low input sheep and goat smallholder systems the proposed commercialization model puts breeder cooperatives at the center of the operation. Cooperatives need to be capacitated and supported to become fully functional business ventures.

Least square means ± standard errors of eight months weight, body condition score (BC) and Awassi level for top ranked and poor performing lambs. (DOC 37 kb)

Descriptions of subjective sheep body condition scoring. (DOC 154 kb)

Least square means ± standard errors of eight months weight, body condition score (BC) and Awassi level for top ranked and poor performing lambs. (DOC 37 kb)

Least square means ± standand error of Awassi level and reproductive performance for top, medium and worst performing ewes in Negasi-Amba and Chiro sites. (DOC 37 kb)

Least square means ± standard errors of lamb eight months weight for crossbred population by location, different Awassi level groups and sex in Negasi-Amba and Chiro villages. (DOC 48 kb)

Least square means ± standand error of Awassi level and reproductive performance for top, medium and worst performing ewes in Negasi-Amba and Chiro sites. (DOC 37 kb)

Mean Awassi level and total number of crossbred sheep produced by farmers in Negasi-Amba (A) and Chiro (B) villages. Bar plots are indicated the total number of crossbred sheep by an owner and line plots showed the average level of Awassi (%). (PDF 234 kb)

Scatter plots of individual admixture levels estimated with supervised vs. unsupervised analyses. Blue line represents fitted linear regression line of supervised on unsupervised and red color represents the diagonal line when x = y. (PDF 86 kb)

Least square means ± standard errors of lambing interval, number of lambs weaned per ewe per year and body condition score for the effect of Awassi level groups and sex in each site. (DOC 45 kb)

Selected ancestry informative markers. The marker name, chromosomal position, approximate location of the markers on the chromosome in kilo bases (Kb), two alleles, allele frequency of the first allele for each ancestral population, pairwise FST values and non-missing allele counts for each population are shown. (DOC 169 kb)