The unmatched hybrid vigour of the Boran

Known as the mother cow of Africa, the Boran has been developed over more than 1 000 years to provide modern farmers with a hardy, cost-effective animal. Sabrina Dean spoke to Gerrit Potgieter from Komga in the Eastern Cape, a council member of the Boran Cattle Breeders' Society of South Africa who oversees the society's marketing portfolio, to find out more about the breed.

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Tell us more about the history of the Boran.

The Boran has been bred as a purebreed for the past 1 300 years, with its last infusion of ‘new genes’ in 700CE.

This means it isn’t considered a synthetic or compound breed developed over a few decades. The timespan over which the breed has developed also means it has greater hybrid vigour than compound breeds.

It is traced back to cattle domesticated in three parts of the world, some as far back as 8 000BCE. Bos indicus, or Zebu cattle, were domesticated in the Indus Valley (present-day Pakistan) around 4 000BCE. European B. taurus were domesticated in Eastern Europe in 6 000BCE, and African B. taurus were domesticated in the eastern sub-Saharan area around 8 000BCE.

The European B. taurus was derived from a humpless animal, Hamitic Longhorns (B. taurus), which arrived at the Nile Delta around 6 000BCE. Further development came about with the introduction of the Taurine Shorthorn (B. taurus), believed to have happened over a period of about 250 years up to 2 500BCE.

The first introduction of the humped Zebu B. indicus cattle was from roughly 2 000BCE, with the second introduction, associated with the Arab invasion of Africa, about 699CE.

The African B. taurus line was domesticated in sub-Saharan Africa.

Current DNA sampling of the Boran has shown its genetic make-up to be 64% B. indicus, 24% European B. taurus and 12% African B. taurus.

The Boran breed started its development in Eastern Africa, specifically at the Borana Plateau in southern Ethiopia, from where different breeds migrated to various parts of Africa. It developed into the dominant breed of Eastern Africa, particularly Kenya, eventually becoming what was known as the East African Shorthorned Zebu.