Increasing Meat Productivity and Quality of Indonesian Chickens by Genetic Quality Improvement

Indonesian chicken (native and local) has a great chance of improving in development and quality. Indonesian local chickens contribute to the economic stability and income of communities, especially in rural areas, and serve as a means of achieving food selfsufficiency. The genetic diversity of Indonesian chickens is a precious asset that has yet to be optimized for national livestock development. Indonesian chickens are diverse, but their genetic potential has not been fully utilized. This chicken has low productivity, but it contributes greatly to the rural economy. The potential development of native chicken is considered suitable to be associated with the issue of food security and food self-sufficiency. Performance and productivity information on Indonesian chickens is essential for local chicken development. Improvement of productivity and development of Indonesian chickens can be done effectively through breeding programs, i.e., selection and crossbreeding. In addition, the quality of local chickens can also be increased through improved feeding management. The advanced technology of RNA Sequencing can identify potential candidate genes and SNPs rapidly, thoroughly, and comprehensively, as biomarkers to improve productivity (egg production, growth rate) and meat quality (tenderness, flavor, meat fiber, and fatty acid composition). Several studies have been conducted on genes associated with diverse traits, such as meat production (growth hormone receptor [GHR]); meat quality (calpastatin [CAST], calpain [CAPN], and myostatin [MSTN] genes); and fatty acid composition (stearoyl-CoA desaturase [SCD] and solute carrier [SLC] genes). Increasing the production and quality of Indonesian chicken meat can be done by improving genetic quality to establish a chicken industry in Indonesia.