Foluke Eunice Sola-Ojo, a professor of genetics in the Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ilorin, has expressed regret over the endangered status of Nigerian poultry genetic conservation while highlighting the necessity of moving it beyond scholarly pursuits by building a robust database for their genetic resources.
In order to achieve this, Professor Sola-Ojo, who gave the 268th University Inaugural Lecture titled “The Beauty and Beast in Genetic Diversity,” urged geneticists and animal breeders to be more dedicated to protecting local chicken and concentrating on research that would improve and preserve it.
The inaugural lecturer urged poultry farmers to “prevent those with beastly/rare plumage and comb types from extinction by producing more of their types,” emphasizing the pressing need to prioritize the improvement of Nigerian poultry ecotypes.
This is due to the fact that all varieties of fowl are valuable as paranormal elements for religious, ceremonial, cultural, and traditional medicinal purposes, or as animal protein. Therefore, it is imperative that their germplasms be preserved immediately for the future generation.
She urged the University of Ilorin’s Biotechnology Laboratory to be taken into consideration for beneficial contributions to molecular research in Nigeria and demanded that sufficient funding for research and training in molecular studies be made available to animal geneticists in Nigeria in order to ensure meaningful research of international standards.
She stated: “Nigeria’s indigenous and local poultry species need to increase in number. Nigerian poultry populations will benefit from increased heterozygosity of attractive genotypes, decreased inbreeding, and selective mating made possible by this.
“The efforts of poultry breeders and geneticists should be directed towards increasing the population of the beautiful ones(Phenotypes and genotypes) through intensive identification and practice of selective mating for better gene representation.”
