Livestock-Livelihood Linkages in Uganda: The Benefits for Women and Rural Households?

Livestock are an important component of rural households and gendered livelihood practices throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Widespread within the development literature is the belief in the livestock ladder, with poorer households often owning small stock and wealthier households owning large stock, with the assumption that poor households can utilize livestock to build their asset base and overtime this would allow poorer households to expand from small stock to large stock, in so doing climb the livestock ladder. There is also an assumption in the literature that women are more likely to oversee small stock. In addition, some well-known agricultural development programs have sought to empower women and households through livestock development schemes, working on the assumption that livestock can play an important role in providing a pathway out of poverty. Our research engages with the growing concern that livestock-livelihood linkages and their relationships to gender are not well understood within the existing literature or at the empirical level. This is in part due to a lack of data on the topic, which includes an over-reliance on household-level data, which does not allow for an analysis of intra-household livelihood-livestock linkages. Utilizing four separate data sets, this article analyzes whether the livestock ladder exists in Uganda, especially in the central and eastern regions of Uganda. We find evidence that income contributes to total number of animals owned at the household level, but the evidence concerning small stock being the domain of poorer households and women, is mixed. By comparing empirical evidence with the existing literature we can not only better understand the ways in which rural development programs can affect gendered livestock-livelihood practices, but also inform current theorizing and policy practices surrounding livestock-livelihood linkages. Livestock have long been recognized as playing a critical role in the livelihood strategies of rural households in Africa and Asia (Alary, Corniaux, and Gautier 2011; Ellis and Bahiigwa 2003; Meltzer 1995). However, only in recent years has attention shifted to better understanding the role of livestock within rural Funding for this project provided by the National Science Foundation, Sociology Program, Division of Social and Economic Sciences, Directorate of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, Award number 1458989. The authors would like to thank all the farmers who took the time to participate in our research, the staff of the EADD/Heifer Uganda office, and Research Associates of Uganda for their assistance with fieldwork. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Please direct all communication to Elizabeth Ransom, 28 Westhampton Way, University of Richmond, VA 23173, 894-289-8068, Email: [email protected]