If poverty is to be reduced in a sustainable way, first we must understand what poverty is.

Poverty not only covers deprivations in income and consumption but also disadvantages encompassing a wide array of human development and well-being. It affects education, health and nutrition; it results in lack of empowerment; it increases vulnerability to shocks.

Emphasising poverty’s multidimensional nature, ILRI uses the following definition:

Poverty is pronounced deprivation in human well-being encompassing not only material deprivation but also poor health, literacy and nutrition, vulnerability to shocks and changes, and having little or no control over key decisions.

A simple and widely used gauge of poverty is having to live on an income of less than the equivalent of US$1 per day, a situation endured by an estimated 1.3 billion people or one-fifth of the world’s population. A disproportionately large number of the poor are women, and it is therefore important that poor women receive a major share of ILRI’s attention.

Women, poverty, farming and research

For research on poverty reduction to be successful, it must include gender analysis to determine how best to improve conditions for rural women. And poor women, who are primary clients of ILRI, need to be involved as genuine participants in research affecting them.

Women constitute 60% of the world’s poor, and 70% of the poorest of the poor. Women provide more than half the labour force required to produce food in the developing world. In Africa, close to 70% of the staple foods are produced by women farmers. But for a number of reasons yields on crops that women cultivate are generally low.

Men usually control the major earnings from the farm, women the lesser earnings. Men use a higher proportion of their income for large household expenditures and for personal expenditure; women typically spend a higher proportion of their income on food and health care for children.

Information drawn on Jacqueline A. Ashby, Poverty and gender: a proposal for action research, a paper prepared for the CGIAR Conference on Poverty, Costa Rica, September 1999

We are focusing primarily on the poor rural livestock keepers of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The rural poor are particularly vulnerable to environmental degradation, and livestock can affect the natural resource base on which their livelihoods depend both positively and negatively. Many peri-urban poor in these regions also rely on livestock for their livelihoods.

All consumers, and particularly the rural and urban poor, can be at risk from food-borne diseases and zoonoses (diseases that can be transmitted from animals to people), even if they do not themselves keep livestock.

The potential of livestock to reduce poverty is enormous. Livestock contribute to the livelihoods of more than two-thirds of the world’s rural poor and to a significant minority of the peri-urban poor. The poorest of the poor often do not have livestock, but if they can acquire animals, their livestock can help start them along a pathway out of poverty. Livestock also play many other important roles in people’s lives. They contribute to food and nutritional security; they generate income and are an important, mobile means of storing wealth; they provide transport and on-farm power; their manure helps maintain soil fertility; and they fulfil a wide range of socio-cultural roles. A predicted increase in demand for animal food products in developing countries—called the Livestock Revolution¹—offers the poor, including the landless, a rare opportunity to benefit from a rapidly growing market.

1. Delgado C., Rosegrant M., Steinfeld H., Ehui S. and Courbois C. 1999. Livestock to 2050: the next food revolution. Food, Agriculture and the Environment Discussion Paper 28. IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), Washington, DC, USA.

Animal food products such as meat and milk are concentrated sources of high-quality protein and certain vitamins and minerals. When children consume even modest amounts, these products help alleviate poor growth, poor mental development and general ill health.

Livestock have a positive effect on diets, health, incomes, financial security, sustainable crops yields, employment prospects and social status. Livestock can, however, impoverish people, for instance by degrading land and water resources.

Although livestock keeping is not a universal panacea, if animals are managed properly, they can be an important lever for reducing poverty and boosting the economy in developing countries.