ABSTRACT
Improving smallholder dairy farming in Africa J. M. K. Ojango, R. Mrode, A. M. Okeyo, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya; J. E. O. Rege, Emerge-Africa, Kenya; M. G. G. Chagunda, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), UK; and D. R. Kugonza, Makerere University, Uganda
1 Introduction
2 Sub-Saharan Africa
3 Management practices in smallholder dairy systems
4 Improving dairy production via breeding under smallholder systems
5 Improving productivity in smallholder dairy systems
6 Key organizations supporting smallholders
7 Future trends
8 Where to look for further information
9 Acknowledgements
10 References
Africa hosts an estimated 310 million head of cattle, representing 20.9% of the world cattle population (FAOSTAT, 2014). The continent, however, produces a relatively small proportion (5.8% in 2013; FAOSTAT, 2016) of the global milk from cattle. It is estimated that 80% of the milk produced in Africa is from smallholder dairy production systems (FAO, 2016). Smallholder dairy production systems are defined as systems where less than 10 head of cattle are reared on land sizes that vary from less than 0.2 hectares to 4 hectares. Smallholder livestock keepers represent an estimated 20% of the world population and farm most of the agricultural land in tropical areas (McDermott et al., 2010). Within the smallholder systems in Africa, dairy production is practised under very different circumstances depending on climatic variability between regions, availability of feed and land resources, the economic ability of the producers to access the production resources as well as consumer demands and available markets (Peeler and Omore, 1997; Devendra, 2001b; Thornton et al., 2007; Banda et al., 2012; Marshall et al., 2015). The
variability of production systems across regions is further reflected in differential quantities of milk production from cattle over time as illustrated in Fig. 1.
