Lobi cattle are a cultural heritage and have an important socio-economic role in south-western Burkina Faso, particularly in the society of the Lobi ethnic group. This animal is specifically used in sociocultural activities such as matrimonial compensations and sacrifices; it contributes to the rituals and reinforcement of social relationships. At biological level, Lobi as other taurine cattle are trypanotolerant, a biological heritable trait of resistance against trypanosomes. The genomic set-up of the Lobi cattle is unique among other cattle breeds from south-western Burkina Faso. Yet, the productivity of this small indigenous breed is very low and crossbreeding with local Zebu cattle is practiced to increase their body size. However, unsupervised crossbreeding leads to introgression of Zebu genes into West African taurine and possibly to the dilution of their trypanotolerant ability. Building on the results of our previous APPEAR (Austrian Partnership Programme in Higher Education and Research for Development) Project 120 “Characterisation of local cattle breeds in Burkina Faso (LoCaBreed)”, this proposed project focus on the implementation and socio-economic evaluation of community-based Lobi cattle breeding. Together with Lobi farmers we aim at establishing best-practise guidelines for selective breeding, on the one hand to increase body size, on the other hand to conserve the genetic integrity of this cultural important breed. This project is application-oriented and based on a long-standing partnership between the University Nobert Zongo, Koudougou, the University Nazi Boni in Bobo-Dioulasso, and Vetmeduni Vienna. The strength of this partnership is the excellent scientific and complementary expertise between both coordinators and the project participants, as the team has been working together very successfully in
the past three years and built a most effective infrastructure and network. The planned workshops and trainings for Lobi farmers will particularly involve women and young people in the community-based Lobi cattle breeding, which will help fighting rural exodus. It will strengthen the capacity of women to have equal access to resources and is one way to increase their empowerment by being economically more independent. Our project addresses several Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 12 and 13. As such, it will contribute to solving local challenges to fight poverty, improve nutrition
and achieve gender equality.