Stakeholder involvement in cattle-breeding program in developing countries: A Delphi survey

Stakeholders’ involvement is key to breeding programs’ success. The identification of stakeholders, their categories, respective role and weight in the overall process therefore constitutes a crucial aspect of animal breeding. The objective of this paper is to show how the different international experts in breeding perceive the participation of stakeholders and their collaboration in the sustainable management of cattle-breeding programs in developing countries. This study uses the Delphi method to collect experts’ opinions on stakeholders’ involvement in breeding scheme design. In a first round, experts are asked to list all potential stakeholders and to score them on a scale from 1 to 5 according to the perceived importance of roles assigned to them. In a second round, experts were asked to confirm or modify their first notes for each proposal, by taking into account the opinion of the other experts. In the first and second rounds, 17 and 12 experts answered our questionnaires respectively. Two types of analyses were first realized, i.e., a statistical analysis, which evaluated the consensus and the divergence between experts, and a textual analysis, which evaluated the arguments and the roles. Then a factorial correspondence analysis was conducted to propose a typology of stakeholders according to their roles. In the first round, the State representatives, researchers and breeders were frequently mentioned, but the experts variably perceived the importance given to them individually. In the second round, the experts confirmed the need to involve these stakeholders. Between the two rounds, a convergence of views is observed on this implication, despite a persisting divergence on the assigned roles and their relative importance. This diversity of views may have reflected a diversity of origins and professions of responding experts. Development professionals considered the State as the main actor, while researchers considered the breeders and researchers. Expressed through a typological analysis, this divergence of experts’ perception of roles suggests three groups of actors playing main roles. Group 1 corresponds to research, which role is to provide a scientific support for genetic and economic evaluation, as well as technological development. Group 2, composed of State, NGOs and funding institutions, covers roles in financing, subsidizing and capacity building. Group 3, including farmers and their organizations, is responsible of the breeding program management, genetic progress and breed conservation. The proposed typology of actors according to their role may intervene as a basis of discussion, helping in the identification of fruitful agreements beyond the perspective of one sole expert in charge of the designing of a breeding program. It suggests an organization that federates these groups of actors and defines the intervention framework and the activities of the breeding program. © 2019