Herders depend for their livelihood on regular access to markets where stock can be sold at a fair price and needed inputs can be purchased. Efficient markets also facilitate regular off-take, which reduces the pressure on the range and helps reduce land degradation. In recognition of this, a number of IFAD’s projects include components for marketing and processing, which are particularly important in countries that are making the transition from command economies. For example, support to the establishment of a new marketing system for wool and lamb in Kyrgyzstan (including core elements such as the establishment of sheep producers’ associations, wool and mutton marketing centres and product quality control systems) is considered to be the most important component of the IFAD-financed Sheep Development Project in that country.

In this context, it was intended to build 20 new markets under the National Livestock Project in the Central African Republic. In the event, only three were built, but 84 were rehabilitated and, as a result, the total number of functioning markets far exceeded the number envisaged at appraisal. According to the project completion report (PCR), these markets were functioning well and served as a good vehicle for measuring project parameters such as the number of cattle sold, weight, general health, sales origin and buyer identity.

Almost as important as markets to sales of livestock are reasonable processing facilities. These may require some technology transfer, but they have the added advantage of providing alternative income-generating activities, giving pastoralists additional risk management options and further reducing pressure on the range. For example, the Badia Rangelands Development Project in Syria aims to improve product processing, while the National Livestock Project in the Central African Republic built four milk processing/cheese-making facilities. The beneficiaries of this successful pilot activity were mostly women, whose potential contribution to household income diversification should be further explored. The Northern Pasture and Livestock Development Project in China built seven milk-processing plants, 13 feed mills and one wool processing plant. The setting up of the plants was delayed, however, apparently because of quality control problems caused by the use of poor-quality local machinery. This highlights the need to consider local capacities when designing product-processing components.

As a general rule, great care should be taken when setting up marketing facilities in remote districts where they have not arisen naturally. Among other things, such markets are unlikely to be successful without the necessary supporting infrastructure such as feeder roads and water points. Small-scale pilot activities might be more successful than project-wide initiatives. For example, one of the aims of the Arhangai Rural Poverty Alleviation Project in Mongolia was to assist, on a pilot basis in two localities, in the development of greater local capacity for marketing herder products and animals. Another option would be to follow the example of the Special Country Programme in Niger, which made production and marketing credit available to herders’ groups, thus allowing them to decide which activities were of most benefit to them.

Relevant IFAD Projects