Business and Livelihoods in African Livestock: Investments to overcome information gaps
Poverty is widespread in Africa, but the continent is fast growing, with the consumption of animal protein skyrocketing, in particular for relatively low-value, low-processed livestock products. Meanwhile, in rural areas, the majority of households are livestock keepers, many of whom are poor. This growth in demand for animal protein can provide major business opportunities for livestock producers, with implications for poverty reduction. While there is heterogeneity among livestock keepers, clustering them into homogenous groups is useful to guide policy and investment decisions that stimulate a market-driven and inclusive growth of the sector. A small share of livestock keepers, from between 5 to 20 percent, depending on the country, can be considered business-oriented with incentives to expand their livestock production and tap into the growing market for animal protein. These keep relative large herds and derive a significant share of their cash income from accessing and utilizing livestock markets. The remainder of livestock keepers can be defined as livelihood-oriented: they keep animals more for the many livelihoods services they provide - such as insurance, manure and hauling services - than for selling meat, milk and other livestock products to the market. The reason is simple: on average, they keep 1.60 Tropical Livestock Units (TLUs), which is equivalent to about three beef cattle per household or about 0.6 TLU per household member, and, therefore, they cannot derive large benefits from regularly selling their surplus production to the market. Policies and investments aimed at enhancing the contribution of livestock to economic growth and poverty reduction should consequently adopt a dual strategy of targeting livelihood-oriented and business-oriented livestock keepers, who have diverse incentives to keep animals. There are, however, major information gaps which constrain the formulation of effective policy and investment decisions.
Investing in the Livestock Sector: Why Good Numbers Matter - A Sourcebook for Decision Makers on How to Improve Livestock Data
This Sourcebook summarizes the outputs and lessons of the 'Livestock in Africa: Improving Data for Better Policies' Project. It aims to present the challenges facing professionals collecting and analysing livestock data and statistics and possible solutions. While the Sourcebook does not address all conceivable issues related to enhancing livestock data and underlining statistical issues, it does represent a unique document for a number of reasons. To begin with, it is possibly the first document which specifically addresses the broad complexity of livestock data collection, taking into consideration the unique characteristics of the sector. Indeed, in most cases livestock data are dealt with, if ever, within the context of major agricultural initiatives. Second, the Sourcebook is a joint product of users and suppliers of livestock data, with its overarching objective being to respond to the information needs of data users, and primarily the Ministries responsible for livestock in African countries and the National Statistical Authorities. Finally, the Sourcebook represents a unique experiment of inter-institutional collaboration, which jointly places the World Bank, the FAO Animal Production and Health Division, the ILRI and the Africa Union - Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources as well as national governments in Niger, Tanzania and Uganda at the forefront of data and statistical innovation for evidence-based livestock sector policies and investments. This Sourcebook represents a first step towards a demand-driven and sustainable approach to enhance the livestock information available to decision makers. It is hoped it will provide a useable framework for significantly improving the quantity and quality of livestock data and statistics available to the public and private sector, and also increase the efficacy of investments that country governments and the international community allocate to generate information for livestock sector policies and investments.
Integrating livestock into agricultural statistics: The AU-IBAR, FAO, ILRI, WB Data Innovation Project
The growing demand for food of animal origin developing countries, stimulated by population growth, gains in real per capita income and urbanization, represents an opportunity for some livestock dependent poor to escape poverty. However, because of the dearth of livestock-related data, the linkages between livestock, economic development and poverty reduction remain to a large extent unclear, which constrains the design, implementation and monitoring of pro-poor livestockrelated policies and investments. This paper provides an introduction to the Gates-funded Livestock in Africa: Improving Data for Better Policies Project being implemented by AU-IBAR, FAO, ILRI and WB. This project has the overarching objective to assist African governments in better collecting and analyzing data which support public and private investments in the livestock sector that benefit the less well-to-do.
A variety of livestock-related data can be collected at country level, but the current limited understanding of the livestock-poverty interface makes it difficult to identify priority data to gather and process for formulating policies and investments which promote equitable growth of the livestock sector. In addition, the role and mandate of the public sector in providing specific information is often unclear, and stakeholders tend to look for data and indicators which support specific investments or government objectives - such as, for example, the number of livestock to be vaccinated or prices for live animals in major regional markets - often disregarding the broader livestock-poverty interface. There are also technical difficulties associated with 'measuring livestock', due to the existence of hundreds of breeds; regular and irregular herd mortality and reproduction rate; livestock movements; impact of livestock age and animal diseases on productivity; and others.
The Livestock in Africa: Improving Data for Better Policies Project will inventory existing livestock-poverty data and data sources in Uganda, Tanzania and a West African country to be decided, and establish communications amongst users and suppliers of livestock statistics to pilot new methods for collection, validation and analysis of data and dissemination of indicators, which facilitate both public and private investments in the livestock sector. In developing new methods and approaches, the Project will (a) combine production, value chain and consumption data to better understand the livestock-poverty linkages; (b) identify key indicators that provide insights not only on production and productivity but also on other livelihood-supporting services provided by livestock; (c) take a demand-driven approach and design a targeted communication and advocacy strategy to support the mainstreaming of key livestock data / indicators into national statistical systems. What matters, in fact, is not the one-off generation and analysis of data, but the continuous availability of livestock statistics to identify good investment opportunities, either for the public and the private sector.
Questions that Count: A Livestock Module for Multi-topic Household Surveys
The adequate inclusion of the major dimensions and determinants of livelihoods in multi-topic household surveys is essential for deriving appropriate measures of wellbeing and for effective investment design, implementation and evaluation. A review of existing Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) questionnaires reveals that livestock is largely neglected: they contain a limited set of questions on livestock, which focus ownership, and only infrequently inquire about animal health / diseases and on production of animal foods. This challenges the design and implementation of effective investments in the sector, despite about 60 percent of rural households in developing countries being fully or partly dependent on livestock for their livelihoods. This paper presents a short, a standard and an expanded version of a livestock module for multi-topic household surveys, jointly elaborated by the FAO, the ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute) and the World Bank. The standard version of the module consists of a set of questions that help quantify both livestock herd and the various contributions of farm animals to household livelihoods, including cash income, food, manure, draft power and hauling services, savings and insurance, and social capital. The expanded version contains additional questions on livestock characteristics (e.g. breeding, branding, etc.), husbandry practices (e.g. feeding, watering, etc.) and outputs (e.g. milk, dung, etc.) which, depending on the country, may or may not be included in the survey questionnaire. The short version consists of a minimum set of livestock-related questions, which is recommended be included in all LSMS survey questionnaires. Survey designers can adapt any of the three versions of the module to design a questionnaire that best suits their needs. The paper also illustrates examples from Niger, Tanzania and Uganda, where the livestock modules have been used to enhance the content of LSMS-type survey questionnaires, and discusses issues and options to further improve the livestock module for LSMS surveys.