Economic considerations for smallholder cattle milk and meat production and marketing: II. Production-related aspects













Table of Contents


Network Paper No. 27
May 1991

by Ray F. Brokken* and Timothy O. Williams**

* Livestock Economics Division, ILCA, Addis Ababa
** Semi-arid Research Site, ILCA/ICRISAT, BP. 12404, Niamey, Niger.

ALPAN - AFRICAN LIVESTOCK POLICY ANALYSIS NETWORK

INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK CENTER FOR AFRICA (ILCA)
P.O. Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Tel: 61 32 15 - Telex: ADDIS 21207

An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the Founding Workshop of the Cattle Research Network in West and Central Africa, Ibadan, Nigeria, October 1988. The authors wish to thank Senait Seyoum for valuable assistance in the literature search and for editing the manuscript. Thanks are also due to ILCA staff members Stephen Sandford, Addis Anteneh, Peter de Leeuw, Ralph von Kaufmann, Williams Thorpe, Mohammed Saleem, Bernard Rey, Layne Coppock, and to Steve Vosti of IFPRI. All made valuable comments on earlier drafts and suggested valuable references.

This electronic document has been scanned using optical character recognition (OCR) software and careful manual recorrection. Even if the quality of digitalisation is high, the FAO declines all responsibility for any discrepancies that may exist between the present document and its original printed version.


Table of Contents


Introduction

Economic efficiency and the complexity of livestock production

Economic considerations or production constraints

Increasing the quantity and quality of feed
Improved nutrition
Genetic improvement
Health and disease
Risk
Conclusion

Annex I - Comparison of feed use efficiency between high and low potential animals

References