01/06/2001
Economic and Policy Issues in the Livestock Service Delivery to the Poor
Elizabeth Redmond and Vinod Ahuja
Working Papers
Livestock are important to millions of poor households across the world not only as a source of income but also as a major source of protein and supplementary nutrition, draft power, fertilizer, fuel and a store of wealth. A large number of rural households across the world own livestock, the majority of them poor. A large majority of livestock owners comprise of small and marginal farmers, who also account for a large share of poor. In general, the distribution of livestock has been found to be more equitable than that of land, leading to a much more equitable distribution of gains from livestock production. This is specially true in subsistence economies with a predominance of smallholder production system. These are also the regions/countries with large concentrations of the poor where the depth of poverty is more severe, and where absolute poverty has shown a rising trend over the last few years.