For millions of poor people in sub-Saharan Africa, to acquire livestock is to set foot on the ladder out of poverty. Here as elsewhere in the developing world, the rapidly rising demand for livestock products creates a significant opportunity for development efforts that may benefit the poor. A better information base on existing livestock production is, however, needed to take advantage of this opportunity.
This study synthesizes the results of past research on livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on ruminants (cattle, sheep and goats), which account for the vast majority of livestock in the region, and is based on published and grey literature for the period 1973 to 2000. It defines the major traditional and non-traditional systems in different agro-ecological zones, compares their productivity, discusses production parameters, and looks at the contributions that livestock make to household incomes within each system. Herd growth and offtake were modelled using FAOs Livestock Development Planning System and mapped using Geographical Information System techniques, providing new insights into the differences between livestock production systems and a potentially powerful approach for guiding future development decisions.
The analysis shows that production is very low in the regions traditional livestock systems, with slow herd growth rates, high mortality and low offtake of livestock products in virtually all the systems studied. However, the markedly higher yields obtained in the non-traditional livestock systems, such as small-scale dairy, indicate that investments in improving animal nutrition, management and health could transform the situation for a large proportion of livestock keepers in sub-Saharan Africa.
