Potential for livestock production and trade in West Africa"s central corridor

The study finds that despite poor performance in the recent past, the prospects for the ruminant livestock sector of the central corridor are good. Rapidly growing demand for livestock products will create an opportunity for expansion of the sector, and economic analyses suggest that it can competitively meet this challenge, although the resources to do so will come less from traditional pastoral systems and increasingly from production in agricultural zones in the semi-arid and sub-humid tropics. However, growth of herd numbers in these regions must be accompanied by productivity increases if regional livestock is to retain its share of the regional meat market. Productivity growth will require investments to improve feed supplementation, animal health, and management. Over the past decade, these investments have been discouraged by policies which have negatively protected the livestock sector. The most important of these disincentives, the overvaluation of the CPA franc, has been redressed. This change has created an important opportunity for growth of livestock production and trade in the region. However, to take advantage of this opportunity, public policy needs to insure that the devaluation is sustained, that remaining restrictions to regional trade are removed, and that investments to increase production, marketing efficiency, and diversification are encouraged. (Author abstract)