From Ancient Pastures to Modern Genetics: The History, Breeding Systems, and Improvement Programmes of Sheep in India's Arid North-West

Abstract

The arid and semi-arid tracts of north-western India, spanning Rajasthan, Kutch, and adjoining parts of Gujarat and Haryana, have supported extensive sheep husbandry for millennia, giving rise to a remarkable assemblage of indigenous breeds adapted to heat, water scarcity, and sparse forage. This review traces the historical and cultural foundations of sheep keeping in this region, principally through the migratory pastoralism of communities such as the Raika and Rabari, before examining the morphological, productive, and genetic characteristics of the principal breeds of the tract, including Marwari, Chokla, Magra, Nali, Jaisalmeri, Malpura, Sonadi, and Patanwadi. It considers the physiological and molecular basis of thermotolerance and aridity adaptation in these populations, the institutional history of organised breeding and crossbreeding programmes centred on the Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute, and the contribution of pedigree-based and genomic approaches to understanding inbreeding, genetic diversity, and selection response. The socio-economic context of wool production, disease burden, and shrinking common grazing resources is discussed alongside emerging community-based and genomic breeding strategies drawn from comparable dryland systems elsewhere. The review closes by identifying priority directions for research and policy, summarising the principal conclusions of the synthesis, and setting out the methodological limitations inherent in a narrative review of this kind. The tract's sheep genetic resources, forged over centuries of pastoral selection, are shown to represent both a productive asset and a repository of adaptive variation whose conservation carries consequences well beyond the region itself.