More meat milk and eggs by and for the poor
Vetenomics:
Interdisciplinary Tales of
Rational Disease Control for
Developing Country Livestock
Tom Randolph
Honorary Doctoral Award Lecture
Uppsala, Sweden | 4 Oct 2019

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Lars Erlandsson
1845-1924
PROVIDING CONTEXT

International Livestock
Research Institute (ILRI)
CGIAR on the ground
15 research centers
in over 70 countries

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Smallholder livestock
keepers still produce most
of animal-source food in
the Africa and Asia
Source: Options for the Livestock Sector in Developing and Emerging Economies to 2030
and Beyond. World Economic Forum White Paper January 2019
Farms of less than 20 hectares provide:
Nearly 50% of the world’s livestock and cereals, and close to
70% of the livestock and cereals in emerging and developing
economies
Share of total livestock-derived foods
produced by small farms in 2010
DID YOU KNOW?
Providing context

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Livestock play multiple roles
in smallholder households
Selling &
earning
income
Manure: for
soil fertility
Producing
power
Financial
instruments
[assets, savings,
insurance]
Enhancing
social status
Producing
food

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Over 100 million landless
people keep livestock
Many are employed in
local informal livestock
product markets
For the vulnerable, up to 40% of
benefits from livestock keeping
come from non-market,
intangible benefits, mostly
insurance and financing
In the poorest countries,
livestock manure comprises
over 70% of soil fertility
amendments.
70% of the world’s rural poor
rely on livestock for important
parts of their livelihoods
Of some three-quarters of a
billion poor livestock keepers
in the world, around two-
thirds are rural women
Why livestock matter

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0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
Genetics Feed Health Rep/management
%increaseduetointervention
Gains from dairy
technology
interventions:
Value of change
in milk yields
and herd growth
However… Disease and poor health continue to greatly limit
the contributions livestock make to these households

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Where does it come in?
• Persistent gap in livestock productivity between lower
and higher income countries in part due to challenges
to improving livestock health
• The result of ‘irrational’ disease control paradigms?
• Veterinary strategies from the global North not always
effective
• Livestock systems assumed to respond the same way
• Lack of recognition of the multiple roles of livestock, the
multiple objectives of their keepers and the constraints
they face
• Combining veterinary epidemiology with a dose of
economics key to getting to rational disease control
VETENOMICS

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ILRI EpiCentre Prof. Brian Perry
SLU Honorary Doctor 2015
• Team led by Brian Perry (Vet Epi) with John
McDermott (Vet Epi) and me (Ag Econ)
• Focus on supporting better veterinary decision-
making for lower income countries
– Understanding how livestock keepers make
decisions
– Providing more appropriate information to
policy-makers
• Combining economics with epidemiology

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Getting to more rational decision-making #1:
Valuing livestock & livestock losses
appropriately
• Standard approach: Reduced production x market price
• Mis-estimates value for smallholder livestock keepers
– Ignores other multiple roles
– Mis-estimates value – under or over
• Particular challenge of zoonoses
– How to combine production loss with human health impacts?

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#1a: Herders consider multiple functions when
making their decisions
Henk A.J. Moll, 2005. Costs and benefits of livestock systems and the role of
market and nonmarket relationships. Ag Econ 32:181-193
Comparison of sale value of a
cow with Present Value of
keeping a cow, taking into
account benefits for insurance,
financing, and status display
Optimal time to sell
No risk
Low risk
High risk

#1b: Cost of foot and mouth disease (FMD)
to cattle keepers in Zimbabwe
• Assessing the impact of an FMD outbreak in smallholder farms
– Standard approach focuses on milk losses and reduced weight
gain
– These are generally negligible for indigenous cattle
– Usual conclusion: no intervention required
• Recognizing farmers rely on cattle to prepare their fields
– Cattle with FMD cannot be used for plowing
– Knock-on effects in terms of crop area planted and household
food security
– Revised conclusion: Targeted intervention to protect planting
season yields significant returns

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So what?
Based on standard approach, policy makers
would give lower priority to appropriate
disease control for these livestock systems

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Getting to more rational decision-making #2:
Understanding who benefits from disease control
• Foot & mouth disease control in
Zimbabwe
– Development aid investment
considered to extend system of fences
to protect FMD-free zones
– FMD-free zones mainly protect larger
commercial farms to promote beef
exports to the EU

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Randolph T.F., Morrison J.A., Poulton C. (2005) Evaluating equity impacts of animal disease control: the case of foot
and mouth disease in Zimbabwe. Review of Agricultural Economics 27(3): 465–472.
• Argument:
– Standard veterinary paradigm – imperative is to control
transboundary disease to protect productivity and access to
trade as a priority public good
– Will benefit the economy and trickle down
• Analysis:
– Single largest impact of FMD are trade bans, not productivity
losses
– The highest income decile captures 2/3 of the benefit from
better control
Getting to more rational decision-making #2:
Understanding who benefits from disease control

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Getting to more rational decision-making #3:
Prioritizing the ‘big’ diseases
• Standard approach: Prioritize based on the total value
of losses
• May be appropriate for very long-term research
priorities, but not for shorter-term research or disease
control decisions
• More relevant question: how much disease can be
avoided and at what cost

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#3: Eradicating tsetse and trypanosomosis in Africa
My suspicion: setting up drug resistance crisis
• Undeniable ‘big’ problem: estimated $5 billion losses
• Successfully argued as a political priority: Pan-African
Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign
(PATTEC)
• Feasibility based on successful eradication on
Zanzibar
• Scientific debate about technical feasibility and true
cost ignored
• Result: bad decision-making, with scarce resources
lost on bad investment
Photo: Oregon State University

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Applying these lessons
• Ranked livestock health problems from the
perspective of lower income livestock-
keeping communities
• Identified potential solutions from research,
their cost and likelihood
• Combining the two: How important is the
problem and Is there research that can help
• To arrive at a list of research priorities
Perry et al., 2002, Investing in Animal Health
Research to Alleviate Poverty, ILRI

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• Standard approach:
– Set veterinary regulations and livestock keepers must comply
– And/or assume livestock health is a priority for livestock
keepers, so they will adopt good disease control practices in
their own interest
• Reality:
– Veterinary services in lower income countries often lack ability
to enforce
– Livestock keeper incentives are often not aligned with good
practices
Getting to more rational decision-making #4:
Understanding livestock keeper incentives

#4a: Promoting biosecurity
• African swine fever: recurrent outbreaks decimate pig
herds
• Improved biosecurity on-farm can greatly reduce risk
– Restrict access by visitors
– Use foot baths
– Bury infected carcasses 6 ft deep
– Report suspected cases to veterinary authorities
• Many pig keepers do not comply
– Too much investment, too much work and probable
financial losses
Dione, M.M., Amia, C.W., Ouma, E. and Wieland, B. 2018. Why smallholder pig value chain actors are not willing to report disease
outbreak or comply to animal movement restrictions in Uganda. Presented at the 15th International Symposium of Veterinary
Epidemiology and Economics, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 12-16 November 2018. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.
Dione, M. 2018. Participatory Impact Assessment following training of smallholder pig farmers on biosecurity for the control of
African swine fever in Uganda. Presented at the Second Participatory Epidemiology Network for Animal and Public Health
Conference: Participatory Approach to One Health, Khon Kaen, Thailand, 10-12 January 2018. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

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#4b: Promoting backyard chicken vaccination
• Newcastle disease a major killer of chickens in backyard systems
• A vaccine is available, easy to produce locally and cheap!
• Projects promoting vaccination in backyard systems are often
successful, BUT vaccination usually drops off soon after the
project ends
• Need to understand calculus of backyard chicken keeper
– No input  some output
– Unless one decides to invest time and effort to make it a business,
it is just fine as it is!

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SUMMING UP…
We have begun to ‘unpack’ the differences and help improve
veterinary decision-making targeting these systems
The effort so far clearly demonstrates the value-added of
an interdisciplinary approach
Can SLU help to encourage a new generation of economics and veterinary
researchers who can take this up?
Simple extension of North veterinary paradigms to the majority of smallholder
livestock systems in lower income countries often misses the mark
Unfortunately, there are very few people working in this space

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock
The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock aims to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food
systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world.
This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
The program thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR system
livestock.cgiar.org
More meat milk and eggs by and for the poor