This document discusses key gender issues related to livestock production, management, and marketing. It finds that livestock are an important asset for both male- and female-headed households. However, women typically own fewer animals than men and have less control over decisions regarding livestock. The document also examines differences in men and women's roles in livestock keeping and participation in livestock markets and services. Finally, it discusses links between gender, livestock, and outcomes like nutrition, food security, and health.

1. Key Gender and Livelihood Issues in Livestock
Production, Management and Marketing
Jemimah Njuki
Team Leader: Poverty, Gender and Impact
FAO-ILRI Workshop on Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and
Programs, ILRI, Addis Ababa, 22-25 November 2011

2. Key Gender and Livestock Issues
• Livestock’s contribution to
household assets
• Livestock’s contribution to income
• Patterns of livestock ownership
• Men and Women’s role in livestock
keeping
• Access to services, information
and technologies
• Men and Women’s participation in
livestock markets
• Links between
gender, livestock, food
security, nutrition and health

3. Livestock as an Asset

4. Livestock as an asset?
 Livestock, especially small stock, form a critical
rung on the asset ladder out of poverty
 Livestock are among the few assets women can
own
 Livestock are “productive” assets; livestock and
their products contribute to food and income
security
 Livestock as a social asset..

5. Contribution of livestock to household assets
• Livestock an important asset contributing 55% of the total asset index for all households (52.7%
male headed households and 68% for female headed households) in Kenya
• Similar trends in Tanzania, with livestock contributing to 69% of all households asset index, and
68% and 75% for male and female headed households respectively.
Total domestic % of
Total HH Total livestock and livestock livestock to
Household Type index index index total index
Kenya Male-headed 97.14 51.28 Kenya Men 41.01 21.5
Female-headed 43.07 29.31 Women 16.68 22.5
Total 83.35 45.67 Joint 60.35 36
Tanzania Male-headed 105.6 72.2 Tanzania Men 41.80 46.6
Female-headed 49.9 37.6 Women 11.42 18.3
Total 95.7 66 Joint 58.47 24.2
• Within male headed households, women held 10.2% and 13.9% of the total domestic and
livestock assets in Tanzania and Kenya respectively.
• For women, this represented 22.5% and 18.3% of the non land asset index under their
ownership
• Gender asset disparity of 0.27 in Tanzania and 0.41 in Kenya. This does not take into account
jointly held assets

6. Household ownership of livestock – Male and Female
headed households
• Local chickens and dairy cows were the most commonly owned livestock
species in Kenya
• In Tanzania, local chicken, goats and pigs were the most common species
• There were no big differences in proportion of male and female headed
households owning different species.

7. Livestock holdings in male and female headed
households
Kenya
Male- Female- • Female headed households had
headed headed
Livestock Mean Mean T- significantly smaller numbers of
statistic cattle, chicken (local, improved)
Bee Hives 3.71 3 0.966
Dairy Cattle 2.64 2.08 2.074** compared to their male
Exotic chicken 187 14 2.487** counterparts
(Broilers)
Exotic chicken 56.32 11.4 2.26**
(Layers)
Goats 6.15 4.64 0.752 • Similar results in Tanzania
Local chicken 13.43 8.98 1.859**
Other cattle 2.47 2.75 -0.182
Pigs 6.33 5.5 0.195
Sheep 4.06 3.28 1.011

8. Livestock ownership: Men and women within male
headed households
Kenya Tanzania
Men and women in male headed Men and women in male headed
households households
Men Women Joint Livestock type Men women Jointly
Bee Hives 3.8 1.3 3.5
Bee Hives 7.8 3.0 21.3
Dairy Cattle 3.0 1.5 2.6 Dairy Cattle 3.5 4.0 6.1
Exotic
8.0 350.0 191.0 Exotic chicken
(Broilers) 258.0 156.7 100.0
(Broilers)
Exotic
70.0 56.5 48.3
(Layers)
Exotic chicken
Goats 11.2 3.9 4.7 200.0 - 346.5
(Layers)
Local chicken
19.1 15.7 9.9 Goats 8.6 3.4 8.9
Local chicken 22.8 39.7 23.3
Other cattle 1.7 1.0 2.7
Other cattle 9.1 2.0 5.4
Pigs 5.7 - 7.0
Pigs 4.0 2.4 4.1
Sheep 4.4 2.3 3.8 Sheep 5.2 6.0 6.3
In the two countries, women had lower numbers of every livestock species than men in
male headed households with the exception of chicken in Kenya and Tanzania and Dairy in
Tanzania.

9. How do women gain and maintain
control over livestock?
• Women are less likely than men to
acquire animals in the
marketplace.
• Threats:
– Drought and disease
– Dissolution of the household
– Commercialization?

10. Means of acquisition of livestock by women
• Despite other
evidence, across species, the
main means of livestock
acquisition by women was
through purchase
• In Tanzania, overall, about
50% of livestock owned by
women was through
purchase
• For, goats, other cattle and
local chicken, born into the
herd was a common source
for women

11. Livestock as a source of income

12. Contribution of livestock to household cash income
• Livestock contributed 35% of
cash income in Tanzania and 55%
in Kenya
• Contributed more to income in
female headed households than
male headed households
• Variation in contribution by
income quartile across the 2
countries

13. Men and Women’s Roles in
Livestock Keeping

14. • Women provide a large share of the labor in
livestock keeping, especially in mixed
systems and poor households
• Women’s priorities and constraints are
often, but not always, different from men’s

15. Women’s role in livestock keeping
• Women often control 70
products even where 60
they don’t control 50
% housheolds
40
animals 30
• For example, women 20
10
often control some or 0
all milk even if they Morning Milk
Male Female Mixed
Evening Milk
can’t decide where
the cow is grazed or
whether it is sold.

16. Roles
• Division of rights and responsibilities
affects incentive and ability to adopt
new technologies and practices to
increase production and productivity.
• We need to understand this better to
develop appropriate technologies and
design more effective interventions.

17. Access to services, information
and technologies

18. Participation & registration in
Cooperatives
-Few dairy farmers registered in
Cooperative
Very few women
participated in
Cooperatives
-None in Uganda
-27% of registered
members in Kenya

21. Men and Women’s Participation
in Livestock Markets

22. Women’s participation in markets
• Sale of livestock and
livestock products are
often an important
source of income for
women
• Men and women face
different constraints in
marketing

23. • Women are more likely to sell in informal, local
markets
• Women’s marketing costs are often higher than
men’s:
– Information—women face higher costs, but
groups can help
– Most often have to pay male intermediaries

24. Who mainly sold livestock and livestock
products?
• High participation of women in sale of livestock products (eggs and milk) and very low
participation in sale of livestock (cattle, sheep, goats)
• Differentiation between ownership and management. Even in cases where women do not
own the livestock, they are involved in the sale of products but not the sale of the livestock
itself

25. Common markets accessed by men and women-
Tanzania

26. Common markets accessed by men and women
• Most commonly sold to markets by women
were sales at farm gate to other farmers or
traders (for chicken, eggs, milk and honey)
• Women rarely made sales to city markets, or
delivered to shops, collection centres or chilling
plants ( milk)
• Men made more deliveries to shops/ hotels
/kiosks and other outlets
• In Kenya women had more options for markets
than in Tanzania
• Chicken, eggs and milk had more market options
than products such as honey

27. Income management by men, women in male
headed households
• In Kenya, low income
management by women across
species and products
• In Tanzania, more income from
chicken, milk and honey
managed by women compared
to Kenya

28. Variation in income share depending on where sold
• Women managed a
higher income share
when product was sold
at farm gate compared
to when sold at village
markets or delivered to
traders
• Differences less clear for
sales of sheep, goats
and cattle due to
ownership patterns

29. Variation in income share depending on who sold
• When women sold (physically or did the transaction), they managed a higher
income share (for both products and species)

30. Gender, Livestock, Nutrition and
Health

31. Gender, Livestock, and Nutrition
"Even small additional amounts of meat and milk can
provide the same level of nutrients, protein, and
calories to the poor that a large and diverse amount
of vegetables and cereals could provide”
“The Cow Turns Green,” Newsweek, September 7, 2009
• Livestock ownership alone is not sufficient to ensure
consumption of animal source foods (ASF)
• Women play a key role in household choices about
food consumption, dietary quality, and intra-
household allocation.
• Women’s status is key to making good choices here

32. Women, Livestock and Health
• Many important diseases are zoonotic, and
food safety can be a major issue with animal
source foods
• A gendered risk assessment found:
– Women’s higher exposure to high-risk activities
such as feeding, milking, and cleaning of livestock
– Women and men exposed to different diseases, by
species
– Women much more exposed to food-borne
diseases because of role in food and by-product
processing, food preparation, and selling ready to
eat

33. Livestock production and human
nutrition? What do we know?
Its complex! test
Land allocation
to feed -
+
-
+ Food crop
Traction, nutrient production
cycling
+
Animal & +
+ product sales
Animal Food crop sales
production +
Animals +
+ owned HH +
Labor allocated Income
to livestock + Food crop
purchases
Health + + test
+ Chronic
inputs disease risk + ASF purchases
Probability of +
zoonotic disease + HH ASF
+ Environmental toxin consumption +
concentration +
Water +
contamination HH crop
Food-borne consumption
diseases
+ - - + +
-
- +
Dietary
- Human health Human intake
status nutritional
(growth) status +
+
+
Total labor + Level of care/feeding
demands behavior
+
Labor demands on
(female) caregiver
Figure. Hypothesized causal linkages between livestock keeping and human nutrition and health outcomes among the poor
(adapted from Nicholson et al., 2003). ASF = animal-source food; HH = household (Randolph et al. 2007)

34. Direct Nutrition Benefits
 Intermediate determinants of child
nutritional status
 Breast Feeding and weaning practices
 Food intake patterns and practices (diet
diversity and food frequencies)
 Intra-household food allocation
 Nutrition knowledge, attitudes and
practices

35. Intensification and Household Consumption
• Key indicators
– Proportion of milk kept for consumption from total
production
– Proportion of evening milk kept for consumption
Emerging Advanced
Mean daily milk production, in liters 3.2 10.8
Mean daily milk consumption, in liters 2.0 4.9
Proportion of households keeping all of evening milk for 93.5 74.2
consumption

36. GENDER, LIVESTOCK AND FOOD SECURITY
Livestock and food security: Calculated variables
• Household/Individual dietary diversity score
(HDDS/IDDS)
– Takes a value of 0-1 and is measured based on a 24 hour recall
– Can also be used to calculate proportion of households consuming
at least one animal source food per day
• Food consumption score
– Based on consumption of food groups
– Each food group is weighted
– Contribution of meat, fish and milk to the food consumption score
• Months of adequate household food provisioning
(MAHFP)-
– Measured over a 12 month recall period

37. Women’s ownership of livestock and food
security
Tanzania HDDS MIHFP
• Women’s ownership
women women of dairy cattle and
women women
do not do not
own
own
T-values own
own
T-values chicken influenced
livestock livestock
livestock livestock HDDS in both Kenya
Dairy cattle 0.69 0.55 1.44** 11 8.77 3.67 ** and Tanzania
Exotic chicken 0.58 0.55 2.8 *** 11.5 8.77 5.08*
Local chicken 0.63 0.55 0.92 8.84 8.67 0.416
Goats 0.51 0.56 0.35 8.5 8.83 0.51
• In Kenya ownership
Kenya HDDS MIHFP of local chicken and
women women t-values women women t-values goats also
own do not own do not influenced HDDS
livestock own livestoc own
livestock k livestock
Dairy cattle 0.73 0.65 3.105*** 4.3 5.8 2.272**
Exotic chicken 0.82 0.66 4.376*** 3.7 5.5 1.689
Local chicken 0.71 0.66 2.118** 5.3 5.4 0.242
Goats 0.61 0.69 2.564** 5.1 5.4 0.403

38. Household Economics
 Changes in income
and income share
generated by dairy
activities
 Income
expenditure on
food
 Allocation of milk
production to own
consumption vs
sale

39. Gender mediated interventions
 Changes in women’s roles with
introduction /intensification of livestock
production especially in terms of time
allocation (care giver time)
 Decision making in relation to use of
milk and income allocation
 Expenditure patterns-food and health
input purchases
 Access to training, nutrition
information, livestock assets

40. Impact of Dairy on Primary Caregiver’s Time:
Time spent on daily activities over intensification levels
Average Time Spent on Daily Activities (in minutes)
No Cow Emerging Advanced
Childcare Activities 201.0 227.5 219.4
Income Generating 281.9 283.9 275.5
Activities
Cattle Activities 15.3 112.1 56.9

41. Public Health
 Health related determinants of
child nutritional status (healthcare
expenditure and health seeking
behaviour
 Disease risk profiling
 Syndromic surveillance
 Access to public health services
and information