28/06/2017
many argue that as Ethiopia is the leading
country in Africa with its large livestock
inventory and potential supply base for the live
animals' export, the quality and quantity being
exported are not as it would be compared to
the stock. In fact, Ethiopia's major exports of
live animals have indeed shown improvements in
terms of volume and generating foreign
currency. Ethiopia is attaining significant
outcome from the export of livestock products,
and has been contributing crucial role in the
development of nation's economy.
In the last nine months, the country has
exported over 232,228 live animals which
included the export of 71,105 cattle, 11,527
camels, and 149,595 sheep and goats. In this
export performance, the country has totally
earned 58.89 million USD; of which, about 42.72
million USD was from cattle, 6.57 million USD
from camels and 9.6 million USD from sheep
and goats. Compared with the previous year
performance, the number of exported animals
and the volume of foreign currency have been
reduced by half.
ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER ADVERTISEMENT
In 2015/16, the country has secured over #147
million USD from the export of # #667,005 # live
animals. Of these, the sheep market took the
leading volume of 398,333 while the cattle
market followed with 153,051. The remaining
28,271 is accounted for camels, and 82,724 are
for goats.
To harness the potential of the livestock sector,
the government has been working on the
improvement of some species of cattle,
engaging professionals into consultation and
introducing latest technologies to the pastoralist
areas. Though multifaceted activities have been
carried out so far, much remains to boost
productivity of the livestock sub-sector.
Therefore, all stakeholders should exert
concerted efforts to address the bottlenecks for
better performance of the sector and boost
foreign trade engagement as well as to improve
the livelihood of both smallholder producers and
pastoralists.
Maddi allafrican.com