3. LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

3.1 Production pattern

Livestock plays an important role in the economy of sub-Saharan Africa, providing sustenance as milk and meat, animal traction and transport, manure for crop production, cash income from sales of livestock products and a safety net of capital assets to face risks and misfortunes in harsh environments. The main categories of domestic livestock in tropical Africa are large ruminants (cattle and camels), small ruminants (sheep and goats), non-ruminant grazing animals (asses, mules and horses or equines, pigs and chickens). The numerical importance of ruminants within this group of cattle is apparent. In terms of livestock units, cattle account for three-quarters of the total livestock population.

The distribution of ruminant livestock in tropical Africa is uneven. East African has over one half of the total population, while the ruminant livestock herd in Central Africa accounts for little more than 3 percent of the total. A similar low figure holds for the coastal countries of West Africa. In terms of the individual countries, the Sudan and particularly Ethiopia stand out for their large ruminant livestock herds, while D.R. of the Congo, compared with its size, features very low numbers. The distribution of the equine population follows a similar though unidentical pattern to that of ruminants. Natural factors like the presence of tse-tse fly combined with historical and cultural factors play a role in their distribution. The pig population distribution is influenced by religion (particularly but not exclusively Islamic) taboos, which explain the low numbers in the Sahel countries, the Sudan and Ethiopia. The coastal countries of West Africa including Nigeria and Central Africa on the other hand have almost two-thirds of the total population. Their distribution follows relatively closely to that of the human population. The ratio ranges from one to two birds per person throughout tropical Africa. The higher figures tend to be found in the more humid countries. The population trends of different livestock species and their density per caput in the four regions of sub-Saharan Africa between 1991 and 2000 are shown in Tables 1-8 (FAOSTAT).

The population of different livestock species in four countries of West Africa namely: Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria are shown in Table 1 for the years 1991, 1995 and 2000. Numerically, Nigeria has a leading figure for each of the livestock species. The livestock population also increases for all species from 1991 to 2000. However as shown in Table 2, the population of each livestock species per caput for the same periods gives a different picture as Burkina Faso has the highest proportion of cattle to human population of between 0.24 and 0.59 while Nigeria is second with a proportion of between 0.16 and 0.18. A similar trend is observed for poultry population with the highest figure of 1.94 chicken/head in Burkina Faso for 2000.

The livestock population trend in the east Africa region shows a consistent increase between 1991 and 2000 (Table 3). The density of livestock per capita in this region is much higher than in West Africa. In particular, the sheep population per caput is highest in the Sudan at 1.5 per caput in 2000 (Table 4).

The livestock population as shown in Table 5 indicates that Cameroon and Chad have cattle populations of about 4 million with the D.R. of the Congo having about 1 million. Poultry population is highest in Cameroon and the D.R. of the Congo with the least recorded in Chad. Livestock density per caput, as shown in Table 6 reveals that Chad has the highest cattle density/caput and the lowest is recorded in the D.R. of the Congo. For poultry, Cameroon has the highest density/caput increasing from 1.52 in 1991 to 2.02 in 2000.

The livestock population in South Africa showed an increasing trend from 1991 to 2000. The highest cattle population is recorded in South Africa followed by Madagascar (Table 7). Poultry is also highest in South Africa. The livestock density per caput in Table 8 shows Madagascar as having the highest figure for cattle and the lowest being in Malawi. Poultry density per caput is highest in South Africa and lowest in Malawi.

In most of Africa, livestock production is extensive. This applies to pastoral and agro pastoral systems in the arid and semi-arid zones, where rainfall patterns predict unreliable cropping and limit the support capacity of land for people and livestock. These systems are predominant over more than 30 percent of the land and include more than 40 percent of the cattle and small ruminants and all camels.

Livestock management is also extensive in higher rainfall areas with mixed farming systems, even where overall land use has intensified as a result of increasing population pressure. Livestock continues to rely on natural pastures, mostly communally owned, fallows and crop residues for feed and a few external inputs are applied to increase its productivity. More inputs into the subsystem occur primarily when direct or indirect monetary benefits present themselves, for example, milk sales and opportunistic fattening of stock in particular to exploit increased demand during religious festivals. Thus, it appears that while increasing population pressure intensified overall land use in a mixed system, the livestock subsystem remains extensive unless direct cash benefits occur that warrant the injection of purchased inputs and extra labour.

This pattern has largely influenced the distribution of subsistence (extensive) and commercial (intensive) production systems in different countries. For example, Nigeria livestock resources are still largely traditionally managed at over 85 percent of all species while commercially managed ones are only significant for poultry at 13.8 percent and to a lesser extent for pigs at 3.24 percent. The commercially (intensive) managed chickens and pigs are largely found in the more densely populated coastal areas of southern Nigeria.

3.2 Productivity

African indigenous breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry are not very productive. By global standards figures of production per head are extremely low, lower than in any other region of the world (Jahnke, 1982). The breeds of livestock are largely characterized by poor growth rate, low fertility, poor feed utilization, small mature size and poor yields in terms of milk and eggs. Importation of exotic breeds has only had an impact on commercially raised domestic chickens and pigs in some countries.

3.3 Marketing

Livestock marketing in Africa is still rather primitive largely consisting of collection, redistribution and consumption markets with a wide array of middlepersons. Three main classes of producers can be recognized with their peculiar marketing abilities and constraints. These are:

1. The subsistence-oriented producers whose degree of marketing is limited to annual family needs and emergency sales of livestock during drought;

2. The semi-subsistence producers who are represented in the traditional urban producers; and

3. The commercial specialist producers who are represented by the intensive producers of poultry and pigs.

It is important to note that marketing is of particular importance for pastoral production systems in the arid zone. The arid zones constitute the source of the livestock flow. They are the extensive breeding grounds from which the marketing starts. Marketing poses particular problems in the dry area where distances are great and infrastructure is lacking

3.4 Livestock feeding

The bulk of livestock in Africa, being extensively managed, largely depends on fodder from rangelands. The problem of adequacy of fodder is higher in the arid and semi-arid zones which are the major producers of cattle; range livestock production systems, of which the pastoral systems are concentrated in the arid zone, while the ranching system, which is found in most ecological zones. The pasture in the rangelands is characterized by poor nutritive value due to their fibrousness. There is also extensive transhumance movement of cattle during the dry seasons of the year. In the more humid areas, livestock has access to some crop residues but these are not consistent and still become scarce during the dry season. Only in the intensive systems of commercial poultry and pig population are livestock fed adequate rations for satisfactory productivity when feed costs are affordable. Where opportunities of sales during festivities arise, ruminant stocks are fattened with additional feed inputs for such markets.

The bulk of the feed in the extensive production systems therefore lack adequate nutrients for satisfactory productivity. Supplemental feeding is critical in these systems. Acute shortage of feed also occurs in the intensive rearing systems due to escalating prices of maize and other feed ingredients thus raising the cost of livestock production.

3.5 Livestock diseases

In conjunction with inadequacy of feeding, disease burden largely explains the poor productivity and high mortality of stock. Pastoral production systems, which dominate tropical Africa livestock production, are particularly vulnerable to certain types of diseases. Thus, long treks and frequent intermingling of different groups of animals provide ideal opportunities for the extensive spread of rinderpest, anthrax, blackleg and contagious bovine pleura-pneumonia, the great infectious disease of Africa livestock. Exposure to wildlife en route and concentration of stock on river and lake shore grazing during the drier part of the year provide further opportunities for infection. With the advent of improved vaccines, most African countries treat herds effectively; however, the problem still lies in the motility of the herds and the extensive nature of the production systems. Lack of control over herds moving across national boundaries also aggravates the situation. The intensely managed poultry and pig also suffer from escalating costs of vaccines and unavailability of some which have resulted in wiping out complete national herds like the Africa Swine Fever which ravaged the swine industry in Africa in the last decade. The risk of disease outbreaks is therefore a disincentive for investing in livestock enterprises in tropical Africa.

Table 1. Human and livestock population in selected countries of West Africa (1991-2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available

Table 2. Livestock density per caput in selected countries of West Africa (1991-2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available

Table 3. Human and livestock population in selected countries of East Africa (1991- 2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available

Table 4. Livestock density per caput in selected countries of East Africa (1991-2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available

Table 5. Human and livestock population in selected countries of Central Africa (1991-2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available

Table 6. Livestock population per caput in selected countries of Central Africa (1991-2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available

Table 7. Human and livestock population in selected countries of South Africa (1991- 2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available

Table 8. Livestock density per caput in selected countries of South Africa (1991-2000)

Source: FAOSTAT
N/A = Data not available