Abstract
Livestock is estimated to contribute to the livelihoods of about 60 percent of rural households in developing countries, including many poor. Measuring the exact extent of such contribution is however challenging, because of significant data gaps. This paper develops and applies a methodology to assess the contribution of livestock to household livelihoods, which allows measuring both tradable and non-tradable or marginally tradable livestock outputs. It implements it using data from Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS) in Uganda and Tanzania, which include a comprehensive livestock module, as well as data from ad hoc surveys implemented by the ministries in charge of livestock in both countries. Results suggest that non-tradable and marginally traded livestock outputs represent about half of the contribution of livestock to household livelihoods.
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The NPS datasets are available from the Microdata Library of the World Bank www.microdata.worldbank.org. Data of the national expert surveys are available from the author upon request.
Notes
The NPS surveys were implemented in the context of the Living Standard Measurement Studies–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) Project of the World Bank.
The conversion factors used are 0.5 for large ruminants, 0.1 for small ruminants, 0.2 for pigs, and 0.01 for poultry (FAO 2011)
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Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely thank Longin Nsiima, Tanzania Ministry of Agriculture, and Joseph Sseruga, Uganda Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fishery for implementing the survey with livestock experts and sharing the data with us.
Funding
This work was supported by the FAO Livestock in Africa: Improving Data for Better Policies Project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Grant no. OPP1082068).
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Appendix. RIGA methodology
Appendix. RIGA methodology
Table 6 illustrates how this paper applied the RIGA methodology to calculate rural household income for Tanzania and Uganda, using data from TNPS wave 2012/13 and UNPS wave 2011/12, respectively. The calculation was based on FAO (2016) and FAO (2014) but slightly modified to increase comparability across the two countries. Tables 7 and 8 report that the results obtained applied this methodology, in the same format as those reported by FAO to allow for comparison.
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Zane, G., Pica-Ciamarra, U. The contribution of livestock to household livelihoods in Tanzania and Uganda: measuring tradable and non-tradable livestock outputs. Trop Anim Health Prod 53, 304 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-021-02604-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-021-02604-7