Pastoralism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Know its Advantages, Understand its Challenges, Act for its Sustainability

On the global scale, extensive pastoral production accounts for 10% of total meat production (or a billion head of camels, cattle and small animals on all continents)1 and supports some 200 million pastoral households. Yet, despite the considerable benefits conferred by pastoral production systems, they are often denigrated as being archaic. [R1] On the African continent, despite these subjective views, pastoral systems are showing remarkable vitality. Spread out from east to west, some 50 million herders and up to 200 million agropastoralists live in arid and semi-arid zones in Africa. They own a third of livestock and half the small ruminants; they supply 60% of the beef, 40% of the meat from small ruminants, and 70% of the milk of this group of countries. [R2]