Since its inception in 1957, the Um Banein Livestock Research Station has been financed by the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Sudan. The Animal Resources Secretariat, and in particular the Permanent Under Secretary and the Director of the Animal Production Research Administration are thanked for their authorization of this joint study and their encouragement in its execution.
Costs related to analysis of the data and to the publication of the results have been met by the International Livestock Center for Africa from its core budget. The contributions of various countries and international organizations to that budget and to this analysis are acknowledged.
The Government of the UK through its Overseas Development Administration (ODA) has provided aid to the Sudanese Government by making available Technical Cooperation Officers to assist with the research programme at Um Banein since 1977. The UK Government, through ODA, also covered the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs, for a total of 7 weeks, of the two senior authors to enable them to participate in analysis and report preparation in Ethiopia.
The authors wish to acknowledge personally the contribution of the following people:
Sudan
: All former directors and former and present staff of Um Banein Livestock Research Station and in particular A.D. Mohamadein, S.I. Omer, A.A. Ahmed, S.A. Tamble, A.A. Saeed, M.C. Bueno and A.M. Tom for their assistance in data preparation.
Ethiopia: John Trail for invaluable advice on the analyses and for critical comments on earlier drafts, Robin Sayers for carrying out the analyses related to mortality, Engda Girma for her assistance with cleaning the raw data, Abeba Zenebe, Azeb Melaku and Selamawit Dominique for typing several versions of the manuscript, Paul Neate for making useful suggestions on form and for sympathetic editing and the staff of the ILCA Publications Division for designing, typesetting and printing this report.
