Invitation from Karen Marshall
International Livestock Research Institute
& Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health

Many of the more than 200 million poor livestock keepers in sub-Saharan Africa are looking to improve the productivity of their animal stock. Genetic improvement strategies—particularly when packaged with other interventions improving animal feed and health—offer great potential to accomplish this increased productivity. The use of genomics in Africa is in its early stages; further discussions are needed on where and how genomics can contribute to Africa’s development.  

We will shortly be hosting a virtual discussion forum on ‘Cattle Genomics in Africa’ and invite all researchers and implementers in this and related fields to participate.

Discussions during this forum will centre on:
Current and future applications of genomics to cattle in Africa—in particular, which applications are likely to make a difference to poor livestock keepers and to consumers of beef and milk—and what capacities and resources are needed.

Creation of a genomic information resource on African cattle—a publicly available set of sequence information on cattle breeds in Africa and, critically, on which breeds to prioritize for this.

The forum will be online (web-based), and open from 16–26 Aug 2016.
You can register in advance or just participate during the forum.
To join the forum, go to this website:  http://cattle-genomix.net

We hope you can participate.
Please forward this invitation to others who may be interested.