BY SINTAYEHU TAMIRAT
“Does the world know what Ethiopia has in terms of livestock and animal genetic resources?” wondered a Kenyan senior veterinary professional.
Talking to EBC World on the challenges in Africa’s livestock sector, Head of Research & Technical Services at Kenya Animal Genetic Resources Center, Paul Egesa (PhD), identified a serious of critical challenges.
Though livestock is fundamental to the livelihoods of rural Africa where 70% of the continent’s population lives, the full potential of the animal resources is yet to be harnessed so that the growing demand for animals and animal products is addressed. Its potential has not prevented Africa from being a net importer of animal products.
The reason for that could be many, according to Egesa. African countries, for example, do not market their livestock potential within and outside the continent, he pointed out.
Ethiopia, for instance, is Africa’s leading livestock producer. But it the sector faces marketing hurdles, he said. “Does the world know what Ethiopia has in terms of livestock and animal genetic resources?” he wondered. “Ethiopia has the largest livestock population, but does the rest of Africa know which Ethiopian breeds are the best? They should be able to trade beyond the borders.”
He went on explaining the poor marketing trend in the continent which repudiated patent to some countries’ livestock genetic potential and illustrated it with the Borena cattle breed.
“We are very poor in telling people what we have. The market is there but unaware. I’ll give you an example. The Borena breed taken to South Africa in 1990s, now countries think that the Borena is south African breed because they have done a lot of publicity on marketing compared to Ethiopia and Kenya, who are the home of Borena breed.”
The marketing trend also denied Africa’s livestock the status of foreign currency generating item, according to Egesa. “There is a possibility that we take our resources for granted. We don’t take them as a trade item. We look our livestock as life style. We don’t see there is a real commercial activity. We can add them to the list of foreign currency earning. We can also see the potential we have on genetic exchange instead of exporting processed beef or so.”
Seconding Egesa, Director Gen. of Ethiopian Livestock Development Institute, Asrat Tera (PhD), said, “The marketing strategy is not that much strong and not strategic. The market platform is largely dependent on brokers. The marketing channel from the producers to consumers is very long.”
Lack of sound marketing to Africa’s livestock sector has also forced the continent to rely on exotic breeds, said Deputy Director of Veterinary Services and Head of Animal Breeding & Reproductive Services, Kyalo Michael (PhD).
A case in point is the East African nation, Kenya, which imports semen from countries like Brazil, Ireland, USA, Canada countries, while Ethiopia is working on better indigenous dual-purpose breeds, but has not marketed it to African states importing semen.
“The majority of the breeds in Ethiopia are of dual purpose, while in Kenya the focus has been mainly on dairy livestock. We are now to move to dual purpose breeds. I think if they (Ethiopian livestock genetics actors) also do some marketing, we can have some breeds from them than rushing to Pakistan or India. We can also get the genetics from them since the climate is almost the same with arid and semi-arid areas in Kenya. So, they have some work to do and I’m sure we can see what they have and help our farmers or livestock keepers in our country instead of going very far, to find better breeds,” Michael said.
Apart from marketing, the bottlenecks in the African livestock sector are related to genetics, animal disease and feed, according to Asrat. “The major hinderances include genetic related issues.
Though some Ethiopian indigenous breeds have their own good sides like temperature resistance, food and water shortage tolerance, their production capacity is low compared to certain exotic breeds. We have more than 15 million breedable animals and 97 % of these are indigenous and not yielding very well.” Lack of positive balance between animal feed and productivity, climate change as well as animal disease also hampered production and productivity in the livestock sector.