Dairy goats in Africa

’Goats are deeply embedded in almost every African culture and true friends to the rural poor in particular’ (Peacock 2005: 1).

Goats can play a significant role in supporting smallholder farmers in improving their livelihood in several ways, one of them being production of higher-value products.

Goats provide their owners with a number of products and socio-economic services summarized in Table 2.1.

Goats are a good asset for food security and in times of crises. When families are unfortunately exposed to crop failure, drought, civil war, illness (especially HIV/AIDS), goats can play an indispensable role in supporting families. Goats are tolerant to infrequent water and limited food options, their herds can recover quickly due to fast reproduction, and, because of their small size, are easy to transport (Peacock 2007).

Additionally, the presence of goats assures farming families of a continuous flow of income, which is difficult to assure based on seasonal vegetable sales. As a result, the possibilities of higher farm

Table 2.1: Goats products and services (Source:

Peacock 2005)

7

reinvestment and/or off-farm venturing are increased (Omore et al. 2004). Owning goats is also an investment in capital and can increase the likelihood of getting a micro-loan to implement such, or other, activities.

The primary extra benefit of keeping dairy goats is the additional milk generated from them as compared to the indigenous goats that provide very little milk. Small-scale dairy production is an important source of cash income for subsistence farmers, especially in the East African highlands (Holloway et al. 2000). Markets for goat milk and milk products exist in many African countries and market-oriented small dairy businesses also offer opportunities for non-farm rural employment, due to the need of processing highly perishable milk to reach the market. This provides direct employment for the owners and the employees and indirectly from ancillary services such as transport, bicycle repair, security and maintenance of equipment. Mutabazi et al. (2007) suggest that one cannot overemphasize that unemployment is the most critical dimension of poverty in rural Tanzania, underlining the importance of these effects.

Small quantities of animal products can improve the nutritional status and reduce food-related poverty (malnutrition) for smallholders. Milk is especially important for children and nursing or pregnant women to prevent malnutrition, especially Vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin A deficiency is widespread in the developing world and adequate Vitamin A is crucial to maintaining a good immune system and deficiency can cause night blindness. Goat milk fat and proteins have a higher nutritional value than cow milk and are digested more easily, allowing lactose intolerant people to consume goat milk. There are a high number of lactose intolerant people in East-Africa (Bille et al. 2000;

Haenlein 2004; Peacock 2005). Food consumption poverty is particularly widespread among Tanzanians according to Mutabazi et al. (2007). According to the preliminary results from the Tanzania Demographic Health Survey (2010a), malnutrition among children under age five results in 42 % being too short for their age, 5 % too thin for their height and 16 % are underweight. This demonstrates the importance of improving access to affordable and safe milk and milk products to consumers, especially in areas where there is limited milk available, both in Tanzania and elsewhere.

8 An additional benefit of keeping livestock is the provision

of manure that can be used to improve soil fertility and increase the output from produce. For a smallholder farmer it is easier to buy a goat than a cow due to a large difference in investment capacity. Almost anyone can acquire a goat either by buying one or by bartering, and they are not expensive to keep nor do they require much maintenance. Additionally, a farmer needs a smaller plot of land for goats to graze or to provide them with enough fodder. For this reason, on average smallholder livestock keepers maintain up to two dairy

cows or comparatively six milking goats if keeping goats instead (Mutabazi et al. 2007). It must be said that goats do not produce nearly as much milk as cows, especially not the indigenous goat.

However, the impact of the death of a goat due to disease is not as severe as the death of a cow, because the loss of investment is not as big and a farmer would have more goats left that also reproduce faster than cows (Peacock 2005). The benefits of keeping goats compared to cows are summarized in Table 2.2.

Because of the long list of benefits of keeping goats, especially improved breeds, for smallholders, several development agencies have focused on bringing in new goat species for cross-breeding in several African countries. During the last 40 years, there have been a number of attempts at cross-breeding exotic breeds with local goats to increase the amount of meat, but most importantly milk.

The British NGO Farm-Africa⁴ has been one of the front-runners for this initiative in East-Africa, followed by a number of smaller organizations, and supported by national governments, universities such as Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania and University of Life Sciences (UMB) in Norway, and research institutes such as International Livestock Research Institute⁵ (ILRI). After many years of research on goats, project focusing on introducing dairy goats and dissemination of best practices (Peacock 2007; see Peacock 2008; Staal et al. 2008), a new additional strategy for dairy goat development is overdue. Adding value to the increasing amount of milk from goats is seen as a valid addition to the research and projects, which may lead to an increased interest of keeping dairy goats.

Despite the evidence that goats are beneficial for smallholder farmers, dairy goat development does not come without constraints. According to Peacock (2008), there is prejudice and ignorance

4 See http://www.farmafrica.org.uk/

5 See http://www.ilri.org/

Table 2.2: Relative benefits of keeping goats

9

regarding the importance of goats to smallholders in rural areas. She claims that the contribution of small-scale dairies to the national economy is under-estimated due to the high degree of informal marketing of goats and goat products, which is not shown in national statistics. Some cultures in Africa still associate goats with poverty and cattle with wealth, resulting in goats sometimes being a means to acquire a cow, and a lack of interest in further development based on goats and goat milk.

Implementing and successfully maintaining a dairy business comes with several challenges. Dairy processing depends on a steady supply of quality milk and requires farmers to give more attention to goat husbandry. Transaction costs of dairy products are high due to their perishability and the long distances to markets, the number of traders involved and the many steps of processing.

Smallholders face barriers in developing and/or participating in dairy processing, barriers that can be overcome by collective action in farmers organizations and groups (Peacock 2007; Staal et al. 2008).

Dairy co-operatives have played a significant role in dairy development in countries like Kenya. Co-operatives can provide breeding and veterinary services, cheaper supply of inputs like medicines and fodder, technical support, training, access to finance (either micro-loans through savings and credit schemes or external funding), and, finally, improve access to markets by collecting, bulking and processing milk collectively. Another important feature of co-operatives is mutual support and encouragement among the farmers, and collectively increasing the relative amount of power to negotiate terms and conditions for market participation. The benefits of co-operative organization depend on features such as member background, access to resources and the performance of the co-operative. Important aspects are good management based on honesty, effective investment of resources and accountability to the members (Peacock 2007; Simmons & Birchall 2008; Staal et al.

2008).