newsarchive.ilri.

org /archives/category/countries/mali

Unknown Title

Archives de catégorie : Mali

Le directeur général adjoint de la recherche de l’ILRI au sommet de la
Banque mondiale plaide (sérieusement, sens, réalisme) en faveur du
pastoralisme en Afrique de l’Ouest
Publié le 4 novembre 2013 par Susan MacMillan
Répondre

Élevage de bétail au Niger (crédit photo : ILRI/Stevie Mann).

Deux grands sommets agricoles de la Banque mondiale qui se sont tenus récemment en Mauritanie et
au Sénégal ont exhorté les pays et les communautés africaines du Sahel et la communauté
internationale du développement à contribuer à la protection et à l’expansion du pastoralisme au nom
des plus de 80 millions de personnes vivant au Sahel qui en dépendent comme source majeure de
nourriture et de moyens de subsistance.

'. . . L’agriculture africaine emploie 65 à 70 % de la main-d’œuvre du continent et représente

généralement 30 à 40 % du PIB. Il s’agit de l’industrie la plus importante de la région, et sa
transformation et sa croissance sont donc vitales pour réduire la pauvreté dans une région comme le
Sahel et éviter les crises humanitaires qui ont trop souvent frappé la région », a déclaré Makhtar Diop,
vice-président de la Banque mondiale pour la région Afrique, qui a ouvert le Forum sur le pastoralisme à
Nouakchott. la capitale mauritanienne, le 29 octobre 2013.

La déclaration qui suit est celle de John McIntire, directeur général adjoint des sciences intégrées à
l’Institut international de recherche sur l’élevage (ILRI), qui a fait part de ses réflexions lors de l’un de ces
sommets sur « L’avenir du pastoralisme en Afrique de l’Ouest ».

1/16
Du directeur général adjoint de l’ILRI, John McIntire

Durabilité
• Le pastoralisme en Afrique de l’Ouest est biologiquement et économiquement durable aux niveaux
actuels de productivité animale et de revenus personnels

• Par « durable », j’entends des taux de charge annuels moyens à peu près constants (dans les unités de
bétail tropicales [UTM]) et des taux de croissance du revenu personnel à peu près constants provenant
de la production animale

Au-delà des niveaux actuels de revenus réels par habitant, les faits biologiques du pastoralisme –
chaleur, aridité, faible fertilité des sols, forte saisonnalité – rendent difficile l’augmentation de la
productivité et des revenus aux parts actuelles du bétail dans les revenus totaux

On peut s’attendre à ce que les revenus augmentent plus rapidement parmi les populations d’éleveurs
qui ont quitté le pastoralisme (pour l’industrie, les services et le gouvernement) et ces revenus
contribueront indirectement à la viabilité du pastoralisme en soi en fournissant des financements pour la
croissance et une assurance contre les calamités

• En Afrique de l’Ouest, le pastoralisme prospère

dans les zones marginales tout comme il le fait en Australie, dans l’ouest des États-Unis, en Mongolie,
dans certaines parties de l’Amérique latine et même dans le cercle polaire arctique, parce qu’il est adapté
à ces zones et que d’autres secteurs (l’agriculture arable) ne le sont pas

• L’adaptation du pastoralisme aux zones marginales est malheureusement ce qui l’enferme dans un
équilibre de faible productivité et le soumet à des risques catastrophiques contre lesquels il est difficile de
s’assurer

Productivité
des pâturages • La productivité des pâturages est faible dans les zones pastorales en raison de la
chaleur, de l’aridité, de la faible fertilité des sols et de la saisonnalité exceptionnellement forte

• Une contrainte importante du système à la croissance pastorale est que la principale ressource
limitante – les pâturages de saison humide – ne peut pas être facilement développée sans induire des
conflits avec l’agriculture arable

• Les fourrages semés ne complètent pas les pâturages dans le pastoralisme, comme c’est souvent le
cas dans les systèmes de polyculture, car la chaleur, la faible fertilité des sols et l’aridité rendent
coûteuse l’augmentation des rendements fourragers dans les zones pastorales sans irrigation

• L’irrigation est généralement trop coûteuse pour les fourrages semés dans les zones pastorales, à
moins qu’elle ne soit utilisée pour la production laitière commerciale, ce qui n’est pas courant dans les
régions éloignées car les marchés sont rares

• Les fourrages semés ne sont pas un complément aux pâturages de saison humide, car c’est à ce
moment-là que les pâturages sont de toute façon les moins chers.

2/16
Risks
• Associated with low-growth sustainability are high risks caused by rainfall variability, animal disease,
and markets

• Periodic droughts disturb long-term growth of herds, destroying animal capital and forcing herders to
restock

• However, the risks of pastoralism now appear to be less of a threat to pastoral livelihoods today than in
even the recent past because of higher non-pastoral incomes (which provide diversification), better
communications and cheaper transport

• Animal health is better than in the past (less trypanosomiasis because of more intensive land use;
elimination of rinderpest, more veterinary services) but gains from better animal health are (partly) self-
limiting because they are partly consumed by forage costs; that is, healthy animals consume more feed,
causing the price of feed to rise

• The long-term shift from cattle to small ruminants will continue and this will tend to reduce income risks
aggregated over time by shortening the periods in which flocks recover compared to the recovery periods
of cattle

Competition in market for animal proteins

• West African price trends will be unfavourable to red meat because of faster technical changes in non-
ruminant meats, so the value of ruminant sales cannot be expected to grow in real terms relative to other
animal-source proteins; the constant pressure of imports harms the economic viability of pastoralism by
limiting its traditional markets

A likely future
• From this reasoning – constraints to the asset base of pasture and animal capital, persistent risks and
the costs of managing them, competition from other sources of protein – the quantity, quality and
productivity of pastoral assets can only grow slowly in real per capita terms

• As long as population growth is vigorous, real per capita income growth is limited by growth of the
capital stock in a way that is not typical of the industrial and service sectors

What can be done?

Build pastoral assets
• Defend pasture corridors against crops and towns; corridors maintain mobility and reduce risk of conflict
between farmers and herders

• Build roads – roads reduce marketing costs, promote social capital, and insure against distress sales

• Make irrigation more compatible with pastoralism – one idea is to subsidize modest areas dedicated to
forage reserves; another is to see that irrigation projects do not deprive pastoralists of access to dry-
season water; ensure that irrigation does not aggravate vector-borne diseases of people or animals (such
as Rift Valley fever)

Create social capital for pastoral peoples

• Provide free social services – education, medicine including Delta 8 hemp flower products, social

3/16
protection; they give additional incomes to pastoralists and reduce their income risks and improve life
prospects for pastoral peoples outside herding …

• Give pastoralists legal entitlements to rent income (minerals, wildlife, tourism) in their regions; this is
controversial and I do not wish to minimize the political problems but we know that the mechanisms for
income transfers today are cheaper than ever before and those mechanisms should not be adduced as a
pretext not to distribute resources regularly and transparently

• Give legal pasture land entitlements to pastoral associations but do not make them individually tradable
because of the risk of land grabs

• Sell commercial index-based insurance products and link the use of those products to participatory
disease surveillance via the cellular phone networks market information …

• Invest in public research – especially in veterinary epidemiology, disease surveillance, in diseases

related to animal confinement and production intensification

Promote complementary private investments

• Some complementary private investments might be lightly subsidized on the grounds that subsidies
contribute to maintenance of a unique livelihood and culture

• Target productive investments – in industrial feedlots, animal waste management, in peri-urban dairying
– to the finishing stage of animals’ lives; such investments are crucial for expanding pastoral markets
because they offer growth possibilities that other investments at earlier stages do not offer

• Ease resource flows between pastoral and non-pastoral sectors – Remittances of money and
knowledge from pastoral peoples working in cities or on arable farms, or return of those people as vets,
well diggers, road builders, irrigated farmers, teachers and health workers, are beneficial to total pastoral
income, not by direct effects on pastoral incomes but by adapting to risks and by improving resilience

More information from John McIntire: j [dot] mcintire [at] cgiar [dot] org

Read the whole World Bank press release: West Africa: The Sahel—New push to transform agriculture
with more support for pastoralism and irrigation, 27 Oct 2013.

Five ways to enhance agricultural markets in hungry regions of East

and West Africa
Posted on April 29, 2012 by Susan MacMillan
Reply

4/16
Causes of livestock deaths, figure reproduced in ILRI-AGRA book: Towards priority actions for market
development for African farmers: Proceedings of an international conference, Nairobi, Kenya,13-15 May
2009. Nairobi (Source of figure: J McPeak, PI Little and C Doss. 2010. Livelihoods in a Risky
Environment: Development and Change among East African Pastoralists, Routledge Press, London.)

With food shortages being predicted for dryland communities in both East and West Africa this year, it
seems an appropriate time to revisit a major way African experts see that the continent can feed itself:
Get Africa’s markets working.

Three years ago, 150 of the world’s leading market experts gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, to document the
best ways to drive agricultural market development in sub-Saharan Africa. Both the proceedings of this
international conference, Towards Priority Actions for Market Development for African Farmers, held 13–
15 May 2009, and a synthesis of its outcomes, Priority Actions for Developing African Agricultural
Markets, were published last year by ILRI and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The synthesis of this major African markets conference begins by referring to the sudden escalation in
food costs that began in late 2010 and persisted into 2011—the second time in only three years that rapid
food price rises, caused by a combination of production shortfalls and market failures causing dramatic
gaps between supply and demand, rocked developing countries worldwide. With Africa’s long-term
struggle with food insecurity, this continent and its economies and people are especially vulnerable to any
sudden rise in food prices.

Even before the price shocks of 2008 and 2011, expert opinion had begun to coalesce on the centrality of
agriculture in addressing African hunger and poverty. Much of the discussion has focused on increasing
agricultural productivity through improved crop varieties and animal breeds, along with increased access
to inputs and veterinary services, to boost farm yields. And, indeed, with crop and livestock yields on
African farms typically a fraction of that in other regions, there appear to be big opportunities for new
breadbaskets and milk sheds emerging across the continent.

But it will not be enough to simply produce more food from Africa’s fields and grazing lands. First, most
Africans—including most smallholder, and even subsistence farmers—are net purchasers rather than
growers of food. Also, as more and more people migrate from rural to urban areas, more and more

5/16
Africans are relying on markets to meet their food needs. And because most rural as well as urban
Africans spend a significant proportion of their income on food, even modest increases in food prices can
tip millions of them into poverty.

Efficient and vibrant agricultural markets would help. But Africa’s agricultural markets suffer from a dearth
of processing and storage facilities, pricing information, smallholder credit, and transport. These create
inefficiencies that both raise prices for consumers and restrict sales opportunities for farmers, who are
stopped from selling their food surpluses in nearby food-deficit regions.

View or download the full proceedings of this international conference:

Towards Priority Actions for Market Development for African Farmers, 13–15 May 2009, published by
ILRI and AGRA, 2011.

and a synthesis of the outcomes of the conference:

Priority Actions for Developing African Agricultural Markets, published by ILRI and AGRA, 2011.

Five recommendations
The following five recommendations, highlighted here for their special pertinence to the drylands of East
and West Africa, are presented in case studies published in the ILRI-AGRA markets book:
1 Support village seed trade in semi-arid areas
2 Manage pastoral risk with livestock insurance

3 Employ ICTs to raise smallholder income

4 Embrace informal agro-industry
5 Encourage intra-regional trade

Details of these recommendations follow.

1 Support village seed trade in semi-arid areas
Section 2 of the proceedings volume, Seed and Fertilizer Markets, includes a case study of the utility of
Tapping the potential of village markets to supply seed in semi-arid Africa in Mali and Kenya. This paper,
written by Melinda Smale, (Oxfam America), Latha Nagarajan, Lamissa Diakité, Patrick Audi (ICRISAT),
Mikkel Grum (Bioversity International), Richard Jones (ICRISAT) and Eva Weltzien (ICRISAT), shows that
village markets have the potential to supply high-quality pigeon pea and millet seed in semi-arid areas of
Kenya and Mali, respectively.

The problem: Periods of seed insecurity occur in remote, semiarid areas when spatially covariate risk of
drought is high and many farmers fall short of seed. In these remote environments, seed systems are
typically informal, and farmers rely on each other for locally adapted varieties. They are not reliable
clients for private seed companies because they purchase seed irregularly. Less improved germplasm
has been developed for semiarid environments because of the high costs of breeding and supplying seed
—a situation that has worsened with decreasing public funding for agricultural research. In the Mali study,
village markets assure a supply of seed of identifiable, locally adapted, genetically diverse varieties as a
final recourse in a risky environment where there are as yet no reliable formal channels, for which
competitive varieties have not yet been bred, and the potential of agro-dealers to supply certified seed
has not yet been exploited. In the Kenya study, well-adapted varieties have been bred, but no formalized
channels of seed provision exist for pigeon pea and agro-dealers are active in selling improved varieties

6/16
of maize and vegetables. In both studies, farm women are major seed trade actors. Interestingly, the
characteristics of seed vendors and the locations of seed programs—not the price of seed—tend to
determine the quantities of seed sold. The authors argue for strengthening and linking both formal and
informal systems for non-hybrid dryland crops.

Some solutions: Several approaches piloted recently are potential candidates for improving the supply of
good-quality seed on a large scale.

The West Africa Seed Alliance (WASA) and the Eastern and Southern Africa Seed Alliance
(ESASA) work to help local entrepreneurs expand existing seed companies and create new
ones.

Since private seed companies do not yet operate in the sorghum- and millet-based systems of the Sahel,
where state agencies are underfunded, scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics (lCRISAT) have tested several models that draw on the comparative advantages of
farmer organizations.

2 Manage pastoral risk with livestock insurance

Section 3 of the ILRI-AGRA markets proceedings, Strengthening Finance, Insurance and Market
Information, has two case studies of particular relevance to the food problems facing the drylands of
West and East Africa.

First is a report on Insuring against drought-related livestock mortality: Piloting index-based livestock
insurance in northern Kenya, written by ILRI’s Andrew Mude and his partners Sommarat Chantarat,
Christopher Barrett, Michael Carter, Munenobu Ikegami and John McPeak.

The problem: Climate extremities pose the greatest risks to agricultural production, with droughts and
floods not only causing crop failures but also forage and water scarcity that harms and kills livestock. The
number of droughts and floods has risen sharply worldwide in the last decade, with disaster incidence in
low-income countries rising at twice the global rate. In much of rural Africa, where water harvesting,
irrigation and other similar water management methods are under developed, the impacts of climate
change are expected to be especially pernicious.

A solution: In the last several years, new ways to manage weather-related agricultural risk have been
developed. Of these, index-based insurance products represent a promising and exciting market-based
option for managing climate-related risks faced by poor and remote populations.

This paper describes research to design commercially viable index-based livestock insurance
for pastoral populations of northern dryland Kenya, where the risk of drought and drought-
related livestock deaths is high.

The analysis indicates a high likelihood of commercial sustainability in the target market and describes
events leading up to the pilot launch in Marsabit District in early 2010. The paper concludes that this
insurance tool has largely succeeded in helping Marsabit’s livestock herders better manage their risk of
drought. Growing interest from both commercial and development partners is helping to take this
instrument to other arid and semi-arid districts in Kenya and other countries and regions.

7/16
3 Employ ICTs to raise smallholder income
The same Section 3 of the ILRI-AGRA book offers a case study from West Africa, written by Kofi Debrah,
coordinator of MISTOWA, supporting the Role of ICT-based management information systems in
enhancing smallholder producers’ incomes.

The problem: Smallholder African farmers typically have little access to reliable marketing outlets in which
to sell their surplus produce at remunerative prices. Furthermore, their ability to respond quickly to market
opportunities is constrained by lack of labour, credit, market information and post-harvest facilities. As a
result, West African farmer incomes from agriculture are low and variable and little agricultural produce is
traded in the region.

A solution: A project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
‘Strengthening Regional Networks of Market Information Systems for Traders’ Organizations in West
Africa’ (MISTOWA), helped build a private-public partnership to develop and deploy an ICT-based market
information system that improved farmers’ access to markets. Some 12,500 agricultural producers and
traders from 15 West African countries benefited from the project, with the beneficiaries reporting
USD4,080 in benefits, or USD4.33 per dollar of donor funds invested.

Evidence from the beneficiaries suggests that access to real-time market information
provides smallholder farmers with incentives for investing in agriculture.

4 Embrace informal agro-industry

Section 4 of the markets book, High-Value Commodities and Agroprocessing, includes a paper by ILRI
scientists Amos Omore and Derek Baker on Integrating informal actors into the formal dairy industry in
Kenya through training and certification.

The problem: Throughout the developing world, most food produced by smallholder farmers is delivered
and processed by an ‘informal’ agro-industry, which is the principal source of food for most poor
consumers and a major source of employment of poor people as traders and service providers. In spite of
this, agro-industrial policy has historically tended to displace this informal sector with a formal one
featuring relatively large-scale and capital-intensive production and marketing. Other policy concerns,
such as public health and municipal planning, have further selected against informal agribusiness,
particularly livestock’s informal agro-industry.

A solution: This paper presents a case study of interventions in the Kenyan informal milk industry that led
to changes in dairy policy that in turn reduced poverty levels in the East African country. The paper
identifies the informal agribusiness sector as fertile ground for alleviating poverty and supporting
vulnerable groups.

Policies do well to embrace informal agro-industry, the research indicates, while helping it
transform itself into a more formal industry.

The ILRI scientists show that the informal dairy industry can respond well to consumer demand for
quality, particularly for safe food, and, when unjustified policy barriers are removed, can compete well
when price alone becomes the basis of competition. These achievements support much conjecture in the
development literature about the centrality of markets, and access to them, for pro-poor development and
the idea that pro-poor markets rely heavily on policy and institutional change. The lessons of this project

8/16
are being transferred to other informal commodity sectors (goats, beef cattle and pigs) in Africa and Asia
and the policy changes seen in the Kenya dairy project have been adopted across the East African
region.

5 Encourage intra-regional trade

Section 6 of the markets book, Encouraging Regional Trade, includes a paper on The impact of non-tariff
barriers on maize and beef trade in East Africa. The paper is written by Joseph Karugia (ILRI and
ReSAKSS-ECA), Julliet Wanjiku (ILRI and ReSAKSS-ECA), Jonathan Nzuma, Sika Gbegbelegbe, Eric
Macharia, Stella Massawe, Ade Freeman, Michael Waithaka and Simeon Kaitibie.

The problem: In 2004, the East African Community member states established an East African
Community Customs Union, committing them, among other things, to eliminate non-tariff barriers to
facilitate increased trade and investment flows between member states and to create a large market for
East African people. However, several such trade barriers are still applied by member states and there
exists little reliable information about how, and how much, these non-tariff barriers are actually hurting
regional trade. This study identified the existing non-tariff barriers on the trade of maize and beef in East
Africa and quantified their impacts on trade and citizen welfare in the region. The study found that the
main types of non-tariff barriers within the three founding members of the East African Community
(Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) are similar and include administrative requirements, taxes/duties,
roadblocks, customs barriers, weighbridges, licensing, corruption and transiting.

Some solutions: The study recommends taking a regional approach to exploit economies of scale by
eliminating non-tariff barriers, since they are similar across the member countries and across
commodities. Specific policy recommendations include streamlining administrative procedures at border
points to improve efficiency; speeding up implementation of procedures at point of origin and at the
border points; and implementing monitoring systems to provide feedback to relevant authorities on
progress in removing unnecessary barriers to trade within East and Central Africa. The welfare analysis
of the study shows that abolishment or reduction of the existing non-tariff barriers in maize and beef trade
increases trade flows of maize and beef within the East African Community, with Kenya importing more
maize from both Uganda and Tanzania and Uganda exporting more beef to Kenya and Tanzania. As a
result, positive net welfare gains are attained for the entire East African Community maize and beef sub-
sectors.

These findings give compelling evidence in support of the elimination of non-tariff barriers
within the East African Community Customs Union.

American agricultural economist Tom Randolph to lead new CGIAR

Research Program on Livestock and Fish
Posted on October 24, 2011 by Susan MacMillan
Reply

9/16
Tom Randolph, an agricultural economist at ILRI, speaks with former ILRI project manager Oumar Diall
while attending a 2006 workshop in Bamako, Mali, on controlling trypanosomosis drug resistance, a
project he and Diall led for several years in West Africa (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

Tom Randolph has been named director of a newly established CGIAR Research Program on Livestock
and Fish. Jimmy Smith, new director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), a
position he took up on 1 October 2011, announced Randolph’s appointment on 13 October 2011.

ILRI leads this CGIAR research program, which is one of several new multi-institutional research
programs initiated by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). In this
program, which aims to provide more meat, milk and fish by and for the poor, ILRI will be collaborating
with other scientists and staff from three of its sister CGIAR centres—the International Center for Tropical
Agriculture (CIAT), based in Cali, Colombia; the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry
Areas (ICARDA), based in Aleppo, Syria; and the WorldFish Center, based in Penang, Malaysia. Many
other strategic partners will play key roles in implementing the program in several ‘livestock value chains’
and countries targeted by the new project.

Randolph helped lead the collaborative processes employed over the last two years to develop the
concept and subsequent full proposal for this research program.

Before this appointment, Randolph headed a team conducting research on smallholder competitiveness
in changing markets under ILRI’s Market Opportunities Theme. His research interests and contributions
at ILRI have been varied, including studies at the interface of animal and human health and assessments

10/16
of the impacts of agricultural problems and the research conducted to address them, including
evaluations of the impacts of tick and tick-borne diseases, animal health delivery systems, ILRI’s East
Coast fever vaccine development research, the contributions economics and epidemiology can make to
animal disease control and the control of bird flu in sub-Saharan Africa.

One of the projects Randolph led has helped to reduce parasite resistance to drugs used to control
trypanosomosis (animal sleeping sickness) in the cotton belt of West Africa. This project established a
clear picture of the distribution of potential resistance across a zone from eastern Guinea to western
Burkina Faso, highlighting the importance of tsetse ecology, farming systems, accessibility to veterinary
services and pharmaceutical products, and cattle breed in influencing drug use and misuse. Under
Randolph’s leadership, this project evolved from a primary focus on the biological issue to a holistic
understanding of the complex epidemiological and socioeconomic factors at farm, local, national and
regional levels that influence the problem and determine the ability to address it.

Among his more recent projects is a groundbreaking assessment of the relations between dairy
intensification, gender and child nutrition among smallholder farmers in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya;
this project is investigating the pathways between dairy intensification and child nutrition.

An American from upstate New York, Randolph received an undergraduate degree in Chinese studies in
1976, after which he spent six years teaching English in Zaire with the Peace Corps. On his return to the
United States, Randolph pursued an MSc and PhD in agricultural economics from Cornell University. His
doctoral dissertation was based on field work he conducted in Malawi with the Harvard Institute for
International Development, looking at the impact of agricultural commercialization on child nutrition in
smallholder households. His thesis earned the American Agricultural Economics Association’s
Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award. He subsequently joined the West African Rice Development
Association (WARDA, now Africa Rice Centre), in Senegal, as a Rockefeller-funded post-doctoral fellow,
later becoming policy economist and policy support program leader at WARDA’s Côte d’Ivoire
headquarters.

Randolph joined ILRI in 1998 and will remain based at ILRI’s Nairobi, Kenya, headquarters as he directs
this new multi-country and multi-institutional CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish.

The future of pastoralism in Africa debated in Addis: Irreversible

decline or vibrant future?
Posted on March 21, 2011 by Susan MacMillan
1

11/16
A Maasai man takes his goats out in the early morning for a day’s grazing in northern Tanzania (photo
credit: ILRI/Mann).

An international conference deliberating the future of pastoralists in Africa is taking place this week (21–
23 March 2011) at the Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, campus of the International Livestock Research Institute
(ILRI).

Big changes are occurring in, and to, Africa’s vast pastoral regions. Livestock herders’ access to
resources, options for mobility and opportunities for marketing are all evolving fast. Is there, the
organizers of this conference ask, opportunity for a productive, vibrant, market-oriented livelihood system
or will pastoralist areas remain a backwater of underdevelopment, marginalization and severe poverty?

The Future Agricultures Consortium, an alliance of agricultural development researchers and

practitioners that facilitates policy dialogues and debates on the role of agriculture in broad-based African
growth, and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, which also has a mixed staff of
development researchers and practitioners, have jointly organized this conference to share new learning
about ongoing change and innovation in Africa’s pastoral areas.

One of the aims of the conference organizers is to shift the crisis narrative that so often dominates news
and discussions of pastoralists in Africa. As noted on the Future Agricultures Consortium website:
‘Frequently depicted as in crisis, pastoralists are changing the way they live and work in response to new
opportunities and threats revealing the resilience that pastoralists have demonstrated for millennia.

12/16
Accessing new markets and innovating solutions to safeguard incomes, this often misunderstood and
marginalised community is re-positioning itself to make the most of the East African economy. . . .

‘The pastoralist way of life—synonymous with irreversible decline, ‘crises’ and aid rescues—is poorly
understood. And whilst the words ‘pastoralism’ and ‘crisis’ have become fused in the minds of many,
there are positive signs of vibrant pastoralist livelihoods that debunk the usual reportage of pastoralists
depicted as insecure, vulnerable and destitute. . . .

‘Failed by generations of unsuccessful state development plans and aid strategies, pastoralists have
been let down because the real problems and issues they face have not been taken into account. A more
accurate understanding of the processes of change happening within pastoralist areas, which are
significant and complex, has been obscured by the perpetuated myths of pastoralism in crisis.

‘Understanding the complexity and potential for pastoralism is crucial to informing policies for securing
the future of this age-old and resilient sector in sub-Saharan Africa.’

Hot topics
The new research and practical experiences being shared at this conference are on the following hot
topics in academic and development research.
• Regional pastoralist policies (and the politics of pastoralist policy)
• Mobility and the sustainability of pastoralist production systems
• Impacts of climate change on pastoralism
• Commercializing pastoralism through better markets and trade
• Delivering basic health, education and veterinary services to pastoralists
• New approaches for strengthening pastoralist livelihoods and social protection systems
• Alternative livelihoods and exit strategies for pastoralists
• Pastoralist views of land grabbing and land tenure
• Pastoralist innovations
• How conflicts are affecting pastoralist development in the Horn of Africa
• The place, and potential, of youth and women in pastoralist societies

Researchers, policymakers, field practitioners and donor representatives at this conference are
assessing the present and future challenges to African pastoralism so as to begin to define new research
and policy agendas.

For more information, visit the Future Agricultures Consortium website conference page or blog and
revisit this ILRI News blog.

Regional strategy for controlling trypanocide resistance in West Africa

Posted on October 19, 2009 by ILRIComms

West Africa’s regional livestock trade

Posted on October 11, 2005 by ILRIComms
Reply

13/16
Regional livestock trade in West Africa is suffering due to lack of policy integration and illegal cross-
border “taxes”.

Livestock trade policies differ widely between countries in West Africa. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are
livestock exporting countries, and want to strengthen livestock marketing and processing and promote
regional trade. Livestock importing countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria, promote policies
that protect local livestock producers, boost internal production, and ensure food security in livestock
products. A recently released report investigating livestock policies in six West African countries has
urged that regional policies be streamlined, harmonised and implemented in a coordinated way to avoid
bureaucratic bottlenecks. The report also noted that transportation of livestock across borders and illegal
“taxes” represent significant additional marketing costs that impact negatively on regional livestock trade.

In West Africa, cross-border transportation can cost a staggering 300% more than the equivalent
transfer of beef from Europe to West Africa’s coast. Meantime, regional cross-border transfer of
cattle costs twice as much as domestic transportation, despite better transportation infrastructures.
Intra-regional trade in live animals attracts certain costs which are unlikely to be incurred if meat
products are traded. For example, livestock drovers (people who drive herds of animals to market)
are paid handling fees during the 2-3 day trip.
Some governments in the region are not fully committed to the implementation of agreed trade
policy reforms concerning trade liberalisation and facilitation, exchange and payments systems and
investment facilitation. This negatively affects costs of livestock trade and regional integration.
Illegal road taxation at numerous checkpoints can be as much as 10% of total marketing costs.
Here, traders are required to make non-receipted payments to public agents for no obvious reason
(see box below)

Illegal “taxes” at checkpoints hurt regional livestock trade

Numerous checkpoints exist along the highways where non-receipted payments are
systematically made to police, customs, veterinary and other officials per truckload of cattle.

Along the main cross-border trading routes, the checkpoints at Ferkessedougou and
Bouake, both in Côte d’Ivoire, have the most notorious reputation, harbouring up to three
different agents, namely: police, customs and gendarmerie. The checkpoint in Zegua, Mali is
also reputed for frequent payments made to officials. Depending on the itinerary, total non-
receipted payments can range from 12,000 FCFA on the Bittou to Accra route to 71,000
FCFA from Sikasso to Abidjan, translating respectively to 1.7 and 10.5% of cross-border
marketing costs for cattle in the two routes. Illegal “taxes” between Sikasso to Abidjan are
nearly twice as high as the government imposed fuel taxes for the same route.

Abolishing illegal cross border “taxes” would result in significant cost reductions and minimisation
of delays that lead to deteriorating cattle health and sometimes death.

Recommendations include:

Protocols on regional livestock trade and regional integration introduced by the Union Économique
et Monétaire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (UEMOA) and Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS), need to be streamlined, harmonised and implemented.
Regional livestock trade should shift its current focus from live animals to meat.

14/16
 Regulations that provide for the free movement of people and goods in the region should be
implemented by reducing the number of roadside checkpoints, curbing the excesses of conveyance
companies (sociétés de convoyage), and actively fighting illegal road taxation.

Report and Briefs

The full report and a set of four briefs are now available for download.

Read the complete Improvement of Livestock Marketing and Regional Trade in West Africa
report: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/1572/1/CFC_Report_on_Trade_In_WAfrica_1.pdf

Brief 1: Marketing livestock in West Africa: Opportunities and constraints: Brief 1 T.O. Williams, I. Okike,
I. Baltenweck and C. Delgado.

This brief summarises the discussions and major outputs from a regional workshop held in Niamey, Niger
in 1999. The objective was to analyse the economic, institutional and policy constraints to livestock
marketing and trade in order to provide a basis for new policy interventions to improve market efficiency
and intra-regional livestock trade.

Read the complete brief: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/1593/1/WestAfrLivestock1-Eng.pdf

Brief 2: Livestock marketing channels, flows and prices in West Africa: Brief 2. I. Okike, T.O. Williams, B.
Spycher, S. Staal and I. Baltenweck

Livestock markets that are strategically located along the border of neighbouring countries to ease cross-
border trade were studied to identify livestock marketing channels from farm gates to terminal markets.
Economic operators and livestock flows within these channels were also examined along with seasonal
variations and other factors affecting livestock prices. The findings indicate that producers and operators
can realise significant economic benefits by increasing meat production and livestock trade value through
improved credit access and better market information.

Read the complete brief: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/1774/1/WestAfrLivestock2-Eng.pdf

Brief 3: Lowering cross-border livestock transportation and handling costs in West Africa: Brief 3. I. Okike,
B. Spycher, T.O. Williams and I. Baltenweck

This brief analyses the costs incurred in the transfer of animals through the marketing chain and
highlights areas where costs could be reduced for example, intra-regional trade in live animals attracts
certain types of costs which are unlikely to be incurred if meat products, rather than live animals, are
traded.

Read the complete brief: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/1932/1/WestAfrLivestock3-Eng.pdf

Brief 4: Promoting livestock marketing and intraregional trade in West Africa: Brief 4 I. Okike, T.O.
Williams and I. Baltenweck

Livestock trade has the potential to contribute even more to foreign exchange earnings if properly
promoted. The major economic, institutional and policy barriers to the realisation of the full potentials of
livestock trade are identified in this brief.

15/16
Read the complete brief: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/1702/1/WestAfrLivestock4-Eng.pdf

16/16