Mind the gap: increasing wealth disparity with livestock exports

Building on a regional analysis for the IGAD-FAO Livestock Policy Initiative, Yacob Aklilu and Andy Catley of Tufts University examined how different pastoralist wealth groups in Ethiopia benefit from livestock exports. Mind the gap: commercialization, livelihoods and wealth disparity in pastoralist areas focuses on the Borana and Somali areas, and describes the growing formal trade in meat and animals from pastoral areas destined for export markets. The report discusses how this commercialisation trend is affecting poorer pastoralist households, which become destitute and are forced to drop out of pastoralism, and revisits the logic of safety-net and asset-building programmes for these households.

Posted on 15 May 2012 in Pastoralism & Marketing, Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition, Value of Pastoralism