Traditional knowledge about local breeds of cattle across generations of Fulbe pastoralists around the W Biosphere Reserve in Benin

There is a growing concern about loss of traditional knowledge among pastoralists, and among others, traditional knowledge about local breeds is of most importance. Therefore, the objective was to describe the traditional knowledge about important characteristics of cattle breeds, to compare this knowledge among different generations and to identify the best breed as perceived by Fulbe pastoralists. Data were collected through focus group discussion (n=3) and individual interview (n=72) with three generations of pastoralists (24 persons per generation), and score of these characteristics were low, medium and high. Among the three common livestock species kept by pastoralists i.e. cattle, sheep and goat, cattle were the preferred one because it produces more milk than the other species. Five breeds of cattle were common in the study area: Gudali, Keteeji, Bodeeji, Tchiwali and Jaliji, and among others, four characteristics of these breeds were relevant: meat production, milk production, resistance to walking and resistance to trypanosomiasis. We found that across generations, pastoralists attributed similar score to each characteristic. The most suited breed was Gudali, implying that at least 65 out of 72 respondents assigned the same score to four characteristics. This was followed by Bodeeji, Jaliji, Tchiwali and then Keteeji which was the least suited breed. Though Keteeji was seen as performing less in term of milk and meat production than the other breeds, Keteeji was the most appreciated for its capacity to stand hunger, as feeding resources were scarce nowadays. Despite challenges in livestock feeding and the negative effects of modernity among pastoralists’ communities, traditional knowledge about the investigated characteristics of local breeds did not vary much over generations. Therefore, there was little evidence of loss of traditional knowledge about the investigated characteristics of local breeds over generations.