86414 Livestock Indicators for livestock feed domain; and the animal health domain. Effective Investments in In order to effectively design livestock sector investments, both the public and the private Developing Countries sector need information on domains along all the livestock value chain, from access and use The Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and of inputs to the volume and value (i.e. prices) Rural Statistics, endorsed by the United Nations of livestock production. In particular, Statistical Commission in February 2010, notes information is required on at least the following that ‘many countries, especially in the livestock domains: developing world, lack the capacity to produce and report even the minimum set of agricultural  animal inventories; data necessary to monitor national trends or  change in animal numbers, including inform the international development debate’. livestock marketing and slaughter figures. It provides ‘a framework for national and  animal feed and forage, water access; international statistical systems that enables  animal health, such as disease incidence; them to produce and to apply the basic data  breeding practices; and information needed to guide decision  labour devoted to livestock; making in the twenty-first century’, including:  housing for livestock;  The establishment of a minimum set of core  production of meat, milk and eggs; data that countries should regularly collect.  production of hides and skins;  The integration of agriculture into the  production of manure; national statistical system.  use of animal power.  Governance and capacity building to ensure If information is available on one or only a few the sustainability of the agricultural domains along the livestock value chain, the risk statistics system. is that resources will be misallocated. For An essential step towards the implementation of instance, unless there is evidence that demand the Global Strategy is the identification of core for animal products is strong and growing, data, which are needed for countries to produce investments in productivity-enhancing essential statistics and indicators on the various investment may generate only limited benefits sectors of agriculture, including livestock. These for livestock producers. In the worst case are critical to formulate, implement and scenario, it may even make them worse-off, as monitor effective sector investments. the increased production of meat, milk or eggs could contribute to lower market prices and reduced income for livestock producers. What should be measured in the livestock sector? Note that only if information is available on quantity / value of inputs and outputs some Livestock Data Innovation in Africa BRIEF The identification of core livestock data to be measure of productivity (e.g. animal / labour regularly collected requires agreeing on the productivity) can be calculated; and that livestock ‘domains’ for which information is information is needed country-wide on all needed. A domain represents a fundamental or livestock domains – including quantity/value of distinguishing element of the livestock sector, animal stock, production from livestock and such as the livestock population domain; the inputs used (intermediate consumption) – to calculate livestock value added, i.e. to estimate Numbers for Livelihood Enhancement www.africalivestockdata.org the contribution of livestock to GDP. This livestock domains along the livestock value information is of keen interest to planners and chain, from input availability and supply to policy makers, allowing them to leverage production and consumption of livestock resources for the sector. products. But there is no any blueprint list or an optimal set of livestock indicators to generate. What livestock indicators should be produced? On the use of indicators While it is clear that information is needed on The generation of livestock indicators for all livestock domains all along the value to design domains along the value chain is necessary but effective investments in the sector, the not sufficient to ensure that efficient and question becomes: what are the core livestock equitable livestock investments can be indicators that have to be produced under formulated and implemented. For this to occur, each domain? There currently isn’t a standard decision makers need to be able to jointly use set of core livestock indicators to be generated indicators pertaining to the different domains. under each domain, and for a number of The Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and reasons. Rural Statistics recommends that the farm or First, different indicators could be generated agricultural holding, the household and the land that convey similar information. For instance, parcel are used as statistical unit, i.e. the basic the proportion of cattle vaccinated against foot units of statistical observation should be the and mouth disease or the proportion of cattle same for all indicators. To ensure affected by foot and mouth disease are both comparability, it is also needed that data are indicators that convey information on the health collected in the same or in comparable condition of the cattle population. The average moments in time, i.e. it does not make sense distance in km from the village to the livestock estimating a milk production index if data for markets or the travel time from the village to outputs refer to the rainy season and data for the livestock market are two different inputs to the dry season. indicators, which both provide information of The cross-country adherence to general market accessibility for livestock keepers. guidelines on classifying and measuring Second, the same indicator can be generated indicators would facilitate the generation of with different levels of detail. For example, indicators pertaining to different domains that information about livestock inventories could be are comparable. This allows the effective generated by collecting data on the livestock analysis of the linkages between economic, population by species only or by both species social and environmental dimensions of and breeds. Off-take rate, i.e. the percentage livestock, and the formulation of investments of the herd that is removed through sales, for an inclusive and efficient development of deaths, gifts, home-slaughters or theft, could the livestock sector. be either gross or net, depending on whether one takes into account animal births and animal purchases made by the livestock producers. For further information please visit: www.africalivestock.data.org Third, country governments have incentives to produce different core indicators which serve Or contact: their policy and investment priorities, as well as Ugo Pica-Ciamarra, FAO to build indicators on available data rather than ugo.picaciamarra@fao.org setting up new systems of data collection. For Nancy Morgan, FAO-World Bank instance, countries that are investing resources nmorgan@worldbank.org into valuing or conserving pure indigenous breeds of livestock, or into importing exotic Derek Baker, ILRI breeds of cattle, may have good reasons to D.Baker@cgiar.org Livestock Data Innovation in Africa BRIEF generate indicators for animal species by breeds. Countries that have a functional market information system for livestock prices may use market prices to value the livestock stock, rather than using border or farm-gate prices. Overall, country governments are expected to generate core livestock indicators for all Numbers for Livelihood Enhancement www.africalivestockdata.org