1. The Lesotho cattle industry is characterized by overstocking, range degradation, low marketed offtake, low fertility, and high mortality. The overstocking situation is paradoxically accompanied by an ownership pattern which leaves many households with an insufficient number of cattle for draught purposes, and the absence of a large commercial beef sector. In this setting a number of analysts have suggested that the increased provision of market outlets would allow Basotho 1 to sell 'surplus' culled animals which would in turn promote reduced stocking and increased productivity. Regardless of the effect of marketing on the stocking rate, the current low levels of commercial marketing may be symptomatic of certain structural flaws which limit market performance. Modifications of the marketing system may be in order to enhance performance. What form these modifications should take, and their likely consequences, are the policy issues addressed in this case study of the Lesotho cattle marketing system.
2. Four alternative conceptual frameworks are commonly employed in the analysis of cattle marketing in Africa. These frameworks can be grouped into two main categories:
i) those which relate producer marketing decision to the overall production environment - marketing to meet cash needs, marketing of capital assets, marketing to promote commercialization of the cattle insutry; andii) those which relate market structure and conduct to market performance.
3. Each framework had distinct implications for the design, implementation and evaluation of cattle marketing policy. As these implications are often contradictory, it is important that the makers and implementers of policy understand these frameworks and formulate policy on the basis of the most appropriate framework. In this paper a number of alternative conceptual frameworks are summarized, major implications drawn, and those implications analyzed for the particular case of Lesotho.
