| Summary: | The challenge to overcome hunger remains one of the most serious confrontations
facing humanity today. The threat of starvation is most serious in Africa, where an
estimated 33% (138 million) of the population, mainly women and children, suffer
from malnutrition. An estimated 680 million people, representing about two thirds of
the rural poor, keep livestock, confirming the importance of livestock to their
livelihoods. Understanding a live stock system requires description and analysis of its
various components and their functional inter-relationships (the systemâs
functioning), rather than the description of livestock production alone. Therefore, the
purpose of this study was to analyse the se relationships which are best understood
by evaluating the various flows among system components as well as farmersâ
management decisions.
Farms vary in their resource endowments and in the family circumstances of the
owners, with various resource flows and external interactions at the farm level. The
biophysical, socio-economic and human elements of a farm are interdependent, and
can be analysed as a system from various points of view. The challenges
experienced in conducting diagnostic livestock studies are often attributed to the
specific characteristics of livestock keeping. Taking cognisance of each farmerâs
unique environment and context is central to the framework of farming systems
research.
No single component of smallholder farms in developing countries has as much
potential as ruminant animals to address simultaneously the inter-related factors of
under-nutrition, poverty and environmental decline that prevent people from
improving their livelihoods. In mixed farming systems, as a result of the interplay
among farm families, animals, crops and social systems, the roles and contributions
of animals to smallholder agriculture are complex. The projected increased demand
for livestock products could result in far-reaching changes in the structure of
smallholder livestock production.
Livestock never interact with natural resources in isolation, but people as livestock
managers play a deciding role and are affected by biophysical, economic, social and policy factors. In this context, an integrated approach to natural resource
management is required.
Eighty-six smallholder cattle farmers in the Nzhelele District of the Limpopo Province
of South Africa were surveyed. The farmers owned between one and 67 cattle, with
an average of 10.3 head of cattle per household. The average age at first calving
was 34.3 months. The rates of calving, weaning, calf mortality, herd mortality and
offtake were 49.4%, 34.2%, 26.1%, 15.6% and 7.8% respectively. Contrary to the
situation in many other regions of Southern Africa, commercial enterprise, not social
prestige, constituted the main reason for farming with cattle. A marked
complimentarity in resource-use i.e. crop residues as animal forage, has been
demonstrated. Family size is the single most important factor among all variables
studied (farm size, grazing land area, cultivated area and maize production area) that
influences herd size for cattle and goats. The most important factor limiting the
amount of land cultivated and the area used for maize production is farm size. Farm
size has no relationship to the number of cattle or goats owned, as livestock
predominantly depend on communal grazing. Animal traction supported by family
labour, played a prominent role in land cultivation, due to the small farm size.
Empirical studies and reviews from Eastern (Kenya) and Southern (South Africa)
Africa has been used to construct a policy framework to guide livestock development
in these two regions. Five overarching, integrated elements have been identified.
These include food production and security, capacity strengthening for livestock
research, livestock and the environment, health and genetics and marketing of
livestock and livestock products. The framework that emerges is complex, due to the
dramatically increasing demand for livestock products and, as a result, the farreaching
changes in the structure of smallholder livestock production.
To promote the development of smallholder farmers, different policy options must be
assessed and evaluated, bearing in mind the farmersâ likely responses. New policies
must include food production and security, capacity strengthening for livestock
research, livestock and the environment, health and genetics and marketing of
livestock and livestock products. An attempt has been made to translate these into
complex, multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral policy frameworks.
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