This is an in-depth, evidence-based investigation of livestock marketing in Eastern Africa which approaches the issues from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, economics, geography, and rangeland ecology. Editors John G. McPeak and Peter D. Little present current findings on how livestock markets in this area operate, describe policy options that help markets function more effectively, and identify topics meriting further research. The issues are examined at a variety of levels (household, market, national, and international), and many of the authors place emphasis on cross-border trade: an area not currently well understood but of substantial economic importance. The results reported here are clearly set-out in terms that can be understood by all those professionally concerned with pastoral people, their environment and livestock, regardless of the readers' own disciplinary background. As a result of the diversity of authors and the different methodologies used, the book will have different impacts on different readers according to their own experiences and interests. The book is particularly significant in three ways. First, it provides serious quantity-based analyses of the validity of hypotheses about pastoralists' economic and land-use behaviour (often previously based on the work of anthropologists). Second, it provides detailed descriptions of current market structures, actors, practices and responses to interventions. Thereby, it provides a guide to effective and efficient intervention. Third, it explores ways in which those pastoralists with a herd below the minimum size required to achieve a sustainable pastoral livelihood can achieve food security and other essential personal objectives.
288 pages, 234x156mm, Paperback, ISBN 9781853396311 |
