Across Kenya’s smallholder livestock sector, goat farmers continue to face a structural constraint: low-yielding indigenous breeds, high cost of improved genetics, feed shortages, and rising climate stress, while this happens, demand for goat milk and meat is increasing, placing pressure on farmers to produce more with less.

CoELIB is responding to this gap through a structured genetic improvement and breeding system that links international dairy goat genetics with local farming realities. The goat section has become a practical platform where research, controlled breeding, and farmer engagement converge to transform productivity at scale.

Goat production in Kenya is largely in small scale, with the greatest proportion being the indigenous breeds, which are predominantly lower-producing than their exotic counterparts. Most of these resilient indigenous breeds have limited production of milk and meat, limiting their potential to generate income. On the contrary, the supply of improved genetics is limited due to the high cost of importing animals, a lack of appropriate breeding facilities, and slow access to improved genetics as developments occur.

CoELIB's goat section offers genetic improvement and livestock innovation services to goat producers. The production system is focused on supervised breeding of exotic goats (e.g., Alpine, Saanen and Toggenburg) in conjunction with indigenous Galla goats (known for their adaptability) through a structured cross-breeding programme to develop improved animals that provide optimal production and adaptability to local conditions.

CoELIB also works with the African Animal Breeding Network (AABNet), a continent-wide platform of geneticists, animal breeders and livestock professionals, continuing to build support for further development of genetic improvement systems throughout Africa.

As members of this partnership with other co-operating partners, CoELIB and its partners continue their efforts in both developing and disseminating improved livestock genetics and other broad genetic improvement solutions throughout Africa, thereby strengthening CoELIB's ability to assist with the creation of resilient, sustainable and profitable livestock systems across the continent.

CoELIB’s goat breeding initiative fits directly with larger national and continental objectives for agricultural change, showing that research conducted at universities across the world can successfully improve productivity in livestock systems through partnerships made at various levels of government.

This initiative shows how farmers can decrease their dependence on foreign genetics to breed goats, improve their genetics, and ultimately put Goat Farming back in the hands of local farmers as a means to increase rural incomes and food security.

By Mwendwa Kavuo