What are the problems?
7. The problems of livestock development may be considered at three levels embracing the producer, government and funding agencies.
At producer level
8. Considering the socio-economic, institutional and natural environment in which the great majority of African producers, particularly pastoralists, are living, the aim of the individual producer is to minimize the offtake of animals for meat production taking into account the following requirements:
- satisfying the subsistence requirements of his household, including the provision of a fixed quantity of services, animal traction, manure (for fertilizer and fuel), milk and the satisfaction of cultural and religious needs;- the reconstitution of herds after catastrophic droughts and diseases and/or other manmade calamities; and
- coping with the availability of other scarce resources and services, such as forage and feed, water and veterinary services; coping with pricing and marketing and other institutional constraints such as those relating to policies of input and output, land tenure and credit systems.
At government level
9. The government's perception of the problem of livestock development visualises:
- maximizing the contribution of the livestock sector to the overall socioeconomic development of the country through increased supply of quality meat and milk;- eliminating constraints in production and marketing, and those inherent in the aggregate behaviour of producers leading in particular to sub-optimal exploitation of range and animal resources;
- improvement of efficiency especially where government funds are used;
At funding agency level
10. The donor countries or aid agencies perceive the livestock problem in Africa as the need:
- to modernize a rather backward system of livestock raising;- to provide funds to carry out those actions deemed important and/or politically acceptable to the donor;
- to provide technical assistance to ensure that defined actions are carried out "properly" and that aid money is spent "correctly";
In the early 1980s, donor agencies such as USAID and EEC felt the need to define new strategies within a related framework for interventions in African livestock development based on their experiences.
Has there been progress in solving individual and collective problems?
11. In Africa today, rangeland is largely publicly owned and used communally for grazing, while the animal resources are largely individually owned and exploited, even within a family. The efforts of governments are channelled mainly through projects and programmes largely financed by external aid, contrary to the wishes expressed in the LPA. During the 1970s, African governments were particularly successful in mobilizing outside funds for livestock development so that national efforts have at best only supplemented donor contributions.
12. Most of these projects and programmes were designed to transfer new technologies and/or to transform the "traditional" sector into a "modern" livestock sector, and were centred around the following components:
- range water development;- delivery of animal health services;
- creation of marketing boards and/or processing and marketing facilities;
- consumer price stabilization;
- manpower development;
- credit programmes;
- introduction of modern techniques and management methods and improving indigenous techniques;
- change of diet of the pastoralist from animal products to cereals to diversify his eating habits;
- increase the protein intake of the urban consumer;
- improve the country's balance of payments position.
All these are believed to contribute to the change from a subsistence to a monetary livestock economy.
13. Why did African governments resort to the project and/or programme approach to develop their livestock industry, rather than build on indigenous technologies and private initiatives of producers and stock and meat dealers?
First, a project is an easy way to transfer resources from developed countries to African countries. Also, it is a reasonable method by which to bring about rapid modernization of livestock through new techniques and management methods. Furthermore, it is the best way of returning much of the taxes collected in the livestock sector, in the form of quasi-free access to invested resources (water, pasture), animal health care, etc. However, owing to the complexity of the problems and the magnitude of the demand for services and inputs particularly in Areas with Comparative Advantages in Breeding (ACABs) and to the financial difficulties in which most African countries have found themselves, it is becoming increasingly difficult to mobilize resources to satisfy adequately the needs of the livestock sector through the project approach.
14. Most evaluations of livestock projects and programmes in recent years recognized that the outcome has been below expectations and that the resulting contribution of the livestock sector to overall economic growth was smaller when compared to its cost. Moreover, it was found that the unintended adverse consequences of the great majority of these programmes and projects often outweighed the declared objectives, which of course is an indication of poor identification, inconsistent formulation, incorrect choice, inadequate financing and ineffective monitoring and evaluation. As a result, the prestige gained by the livestock sector during the 1970s is beginning to decline and livestock owners, consumers and tax-payers now feel they have been placed at a disadvantage because of current livestock policies and measures.
15. In contrast, the producers, now use various instruments in solving their problems. For instance, to minimize the impact of calamities like drought and disease the producers keep animals of various sexes, ages and categories, and in large numbers, and distribute them among relatives living far away. Also, the producer uses transhumance to cope with the seasonal availability of resources, particularly water. Furthermore, during the drier season, the producers barter manure and milk for water, for animals, crop residues and food grains. Additionally, it is to be noted that the operating cost of the livestock farm in terms of cash is low, the diet of stockowners is mainly based on milk, and the dowry is based on the principle of exchange of animals between families so that the total cash needs, which will involve the selling of animals, is kept to a minimum.
16. In recent years, the production systems and environment of producers received several shocks, due mainly to government interventions, droughts and disease, making it increasingly difficult to use fully and efficiently the above-mentioned techniques. In particular, owing to the widespread and recurrent nature of drought and disease, the transhumant and nomadic techniques are no longer as efficient as in the past in coping with the seasonal availability of resources, and in minimizing the impact of calamities. Furthermore, the producer very often adopted, vis-à-vis governmental interventions, a strategy not always conducive to progress.
17. In the early 1980s, the framework and strategies for intervention in African livestock were designed by the major agencies. However, this often led to problems between them and the assisted government, since some of the strategies required changes. Past experience has shown that policy and administrative reforms are difficult and delicate, particularly when requests for such reforms are considered by African governments as an interference in the affairs of State instead of being solutions to their problems. Further, this problem is considerably magnified when a multitude of donor and lending agencies have to intervene in a single country and very often without coordination. The emergence of this new problem created by the agencies is likely to make it much more difficult for the agencies to mobilize their resources for government programmes. There is also the danger that the agency might be ready to finance livestock development activities that do not reflect the government's priorities or even run counter to them. The rescheduling of debts requested more and more by African governments is jeopardizing their credit-worthiness to the point where African countries will find it increasingly difficult to obtain loans on the international financial market without proper guarantees.
18. Thus, it will be seen that the ways in which individual problems have been tackled so far have produced serious shortcomings explaining why African livestock has been performing increasingly poorly. However, the general awareness of the worrying state of livestock and the need to reverse the present trend is reassuring and fully justified the adoption in 1983 by the ECA Conference of Ministers of Resolution 463: Assistance to the African Livestock Sector, and the attention drawn for the first time by the African, Carribean and Pacific/European Economic Community (ACP/EEC) Council of Ministers to livestock farming, which stressed in particular the inadequacy of the measures for fixing meat prices and the ensuing effects on the keeping and feeding of animals. Policy issues are at the heart of the livestock problem. Available trained manpower, although limited and inadequate, is often under-utilized and current technical and scientific knowledge on how to tackle the constraints is sufficient to ensure reasonable progress and to realize part of its potential. Although finance is often cited as the major constraint, this study postulates that if appropriate policies for mobilizing local resources, particularly those of producers, are evolved, this constraint will be significantly alleviated. This is particularly true since the request for rescheduling of debts tends to jeopardize the credit-worthiness of African governments. In all cases, if more marketable meat and milk were to be produced on a regular basis, it is essential that all parties: producers, governments and funding agencies change policies and attitudes toward the development of the sector, and become more flexible in implementing their policies and strategies.
