Presentation by Ruhangawebare Godfrey, Mpairwe Denis, Bashaasha Bernard, Mutetikka David and Jorgen Madsen at the 5th All Africa conference on animal production, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 25-28 October 2010.

1. Factors Influencing Beef Cattle Sales in the
Pastoral Communities of Western and Central
Uganda
Presented by 1
Ruhangawebare Godfrey, 1
*Mpairwe Denis, 1
Bashaasha Bernard, 1
Mutetikka David
and 2
Jorgen Madsen for the 5th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture and the 18th
Annual Meeting of the Ethiopian Society of Animal Production (ESAP), Addis Ababa, October
25-28, 2010

2. Background
Livestock contributes 9% of Gross Domestic Product and 17%
of Agricultural Gross Domestic Product of Uganda
 90% of national cattle herd is raised in traditional pastoral
and mixed smallholder crop-livestock farming systems.
Produce 85% of the milk and 95% of the beef consumed in
the country

3. Problem Statement
•Despite Government’s policy to commercialize
agriculture through market liberalisation,
•Marketed livestock output is still low (12%) contributing
to meat deficit 41.2 kg/head
•Survival strategy of risk minimization rather than
maximizing off take per animal
• Most Patoralists hold onto their animals instead of
responding to demand; sell when cash constrained
•Offered low prices yielding low income levels

4. Methodology
•The study was conducted to establish the factors affecting
the cattle sales rates of the pastoral livestock keepers
•It was done in four districts covering the Western and
Central regions of the cattle corridor
•Statistical analysis to estimate the socio-economic
characteristics was executed in SPSS
•A Tobit model was used to determine the factors affecting
the livestock keepers’ sales rate

5. Socio- economic Characteristics
•The average years of formal education were 8 years(p< 0.1)
and an average household size of 10 members
• Average owned grazing land size was 151.7 hectares and
significantly (p<0.01) reduced the farmers’ sales rate
•Indigenous cattle breeds (51%) were the most owned
followed by crossbreeds (45%) and exotic breeds (1%)
• Reproductive female cows (50.4%) dominated herds
followed by heifers (24.3%), calves and mature bulls (Fig.1)

6. Results continued
• 96% of the respondents had participated in livestock marketing
indicating that pastoralists in Uganda sale their cattle
•Cattle sales were mostly cows (38.1%), weaner bulls (36.2%), heifers
(12.5%), steers (8.7%), bulls (3.9%) and weaner heifers (6.6%)
•Little importance was attached to keeping cattle for commercial
purposes (33.1%) compared to providing household insurance
(78.9%) (Table 1)
•Cattle were sold mostly to finance both the expected and
unexpected expenses such as school fees and household needs

7. 7
• Pastoralist used market more to sell than buy - are net sellers
Restock from births than purchases
• Abattoir dealers formed the major outlet - they were source of
information to farmers, offered higher prices and over the years
had built a close relationship the with farmers
• Local markets were second - offered fair prices due to relatively
many traders thus minimizing collusion amongst themselves
• Fellow farmers bought animals with desired traits for breeding;
thus offered better prices than local butchers – expecting some
help in future in case of emergency (Fig.2)
Cattle Marketing Outlets

8. Factors affecting Cattle Sales rates
• The sales rate of 17.6% was recorded which is close to 18%
reported in other grassland cattle production systems
•Low and fluctuating cattle prices (p<0.05), quarantine, limited
number of traders, inaccessibility to market information
(p< 0.05) and poor roads (p<0.05) were the major livestock
marketing constraints (Tables 2 and 3)
•The four constraints were interlinked and influenced each
other

9. Conclusion and Recommendation
• Pastoral livestock keepers sold their cattle to finance
immediate cash needs
•Provision of sufficient market information enables them to
make informed decisions.
•Government should increase acceptable investment
alternatives to cattle and initiate well functioning information
systems accessible to the widely dispersed producer
populations

10. 10
Acknowledgements
DANIDA through IGMAFU project
African Economic Research Consortium
(AERC)
Makerere University

11. THANK YOU

13. (Table 1) 1. Purposes for Keeping Cattle by Pastoralists
Cattle Purpose
N= 180
Strongly
Agree (%)
Agree
(%)
Disagree
(%)
Strongly
Disagree (%)
Prestige 25 53.3 16 5.6
Way of Life 42.7 53.3 4.4 00
Store of Wealth 66.3 30.0 2.8 1.1
Security/insurance 78.9 21.1 00 00
Food 50.2 47.8 2.0 00
Source of Income 44.6 48.3 7.1 00
Commercial
Purposes
33.1 16.2 26.7 23.9

15. Table 2. Major Cattle Marketing Constraints
Constraint Rank ( Mean)1
Low and fluctuating prices 1 (1.6)
Quarantine 2 (1.96)
Limited Cattle traders 4 (4.9)
Inaccessibility to market information 6 (6.8)
Poor roads 7 (6.9)
’s Coefficient (W)2
0.75***
1
The lower the rank, the greater the importance of the constraint.
2
W ranges from 0 (* no agreement) to 1 complete agreement and the higher
its value the higher is the level of agreement between groups.
*** P ≤ 0.001

16. Table 3. Tobit model Estimates for Factors affecting Livestock keepers’
Sales rates
Explanatory variable Coefficient Standard Error P Value
Sex 0.85559 0.3283 0.013**
Household size 0.00532 0.01701 0.756
Education level -0.04994 0.27677 0.082*
Grazing Area owned -0.05014 0.01617 0.004***
Alternative source of income -0.36418 0.19731 0.073*
Distance to nearest market 0.16555 0.08382 0.056*
Farming organization -0.18194 0.19322 0.353
Cattle Prices 0.11407 0.04986 0.035**
Road condition -0.17608 0.07360 0.022**
Access to Market information 0.11398 0.04897 0.026**
Total value of milk sold 0.00003 0.00001 0.021**
Constant -1.32666 0.5884 0.131
Pseudo R2
0.2590 ; *** 1 %, ** 5% * 10% level of significance