Livestock Systems
Different types of livestock
In rural areas of Afghanistan, women and men farmers and nomadic/semi-nomadic pastoralists have a long
and diverse history of animal husbandry and rangeland management, which stretches back some 9,000 years.
Every household has at least some scavenging birds and often a house cow too; specific communities keep
large herds of sheep and goats, whereas others just have one or two for fattening purposes. Rearing buffaloes,
camels or yaks is less widespread. A donkey is a basic necessity as it offers a cheap means of transport. Other
people keep horses and might even be involved in the famous Buzkashi or Kokpar game1 in which mounted
players attempt to drag a goat carcass towards a goal. It is often played on Fridays, and matches draw
thousands
of
fans.
Cockfighting is another
popular game, which drives
owners to keep relevant
poultry breeds2 pure. Apart
from
poultry
(Gallus
domesticus), there are
many other birds such as
turkeys, guinea fowl, quails,
ducks, pigeons, kawk, etc.
and pet, sporting and ornamental birds such as canaries, parrots, sayera, adamchehra and nurgis., wild fowl
and hawks for hunting, and all these birds are considered fowl. In addition, sheep and goats are grouped
together as small ruminants, while buffaloes, cattle and yaks are classified as large ruminants. Camels,
however, belong to the camelids group; they are “even-toed ungulates” without hooves. Fowl and pigs are
called monogastrics, which refers to livestock with only one stomach.
The four functions of livestock
and their link to capital
As narrated above, animals are not
just kept for meat and milk, but fulfil
a range of other functions. Farmers
and pastoralists keep animals as
direct sources of food and nonfood products such as milk, meat,
wool, hair and eggs, as well as manure for fuel and urine for medicine
(output function).
Some of these products
provide input for other activities. Manure, horn,
bone, urine and grazing
fallow land are beneficial
to crop production; stubble fields help livestock
keepers feed their animals; animals provide
draught
power
for
transport, and their hair,
hooves and manure help
1
2
Figure 1: Livestock Production Systems, their
functions and relationship to capital (Van der Ploeg,
2009; Rangnekar, 2006)
Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzkashi#Ban_in_Afghanistan
Khasaki, Kulang, Pusty and Sabzwari are the common, local poultry breeds in Afghanistan.
Conceptual Note SLMP Training of Resource Persons on Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Management
1
to disperse seeds and improve seed germination; their grazing prevents bushfires, controls shrub growth, stimulates grass tillering and breaks up hard soil crusts (input function).
Animals also allow livestock keepers to raise money in times of need (asset function). This is often the main
function of livestock in poor households, and it explains why animals are not necessarily sold when the market
price is attractive, but when there is a need for cash. That is why livestock is also called a “bank on hooves”.
Livestock form an integral part of the household, and in Afghanistan the house cow, dairy goats and scavenging
poultry are generally under the control of women. They are indicators of social status: festivals and fairs are
based on livestock (bullock-cart racing, camel and horse racing, cockfighting, cow beauty contexts), and many
songs have been written about livestock (socio-cultural function).
Any analysis of farming systems considers the conversion of nature (ecological capital) into food, drinks and
a wide range of raw products. But controlling the complex arrangement and developments of livestock-rearing/farming require communities to network, cooperate, self-regulate, solve conflicts and engage in learning
processes (social capital). Finally, farming and herding stands for a certain culture and way of life (cultural
capital). Cultural capital in Afghanistan determines, for instance, that fresh milk products (milk, yogurt, buttermilk) should not be sold but kept for home consumption, entertaining guests and for the needy. Processed milk
products such as butter, cheese and qurut (dried whey), on the other hand, are sold. Farming and herding
culture guarantees products’ origin, quality, authenticity and freshness, and the associated production, processing and marketing customs (fairness and sustainability). In Afghanistan, consumers prefer Afghan livestock
products as opposed to imported products, and locally produced eggs fetch a much higher price than imported
ones. It is much deplored that the market is flooded with cheap carpets from Asia to the detriment of carpets
made from the famous Karakul hair.
Livestock Production
Systems
There are various classifications for defining Livestock
Production Systems (LPS).
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) distinguishes between two
Figure 2: FAO's three-tiered classification of Livestock Production Systems
main categories based on
(FAO, 1995)
“solely livestock” and
“mixed farming” systems,
each of which is further subdivided into two more categories, as shown in Figure 2. The LPS is thus based on four modes of production,
namely: i) Landless livestock production, ii) Grassland-based production, iii) Rain-fed crop and livestock production, and iv) Irrigated crop and livestock production. Systems ii) and iii) predominate in Afghanistan.
The so-called “solely livestock”, of which the grassland-based LPS is the most common example in Afghanistan,
is defined by the fact that over 90 percent of the dry matter fed to animals comes from rangelands, pastures,
annual forage and purchased feed, and less than 10 percent of the total value of production comes from nonlivestock farming activities.
Landless LPS
The landless LPS covers animals that are physically separated from the land that supports them, and covers
in particular the intensive production systems of large-scale rearing of layers, broilers, fattening calves and pigs,
etc. In Afghanistan’s case, poultry feed mills have gone into contract farming to obtain locally produced maize.
However, in general terms, the raw materials needed to be self-sufficient in the production of poultry feed would
imply that almost all cropland would have to be allocated to this purpose. Nonetheless, this intensive LPS,
which is often called “industrialised” or “factory” farming or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO),
provides about 45 percent of global meat output (FAO, 2006). Dairy cows can also be operated as a CAFO,
which means that all the feed comes from off the farm. The intensive concentration of animals in small areas is
criticised not only from an ethical point of view, but also from a moral standpoint, since animal welfare is
important to many consumers.
There are however also small-scale landless farmers who keep ruminants. This normally concerns poor households, whose members might do off-farm work (casual labourer, for instance) and collect fodder such as roadside grasses and crop by-products (bran, straw) outside their farms, as well as tethering their animals.
Conceptual Note SLMP Training of Resource Persons on Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Management
2
Grassland-based LPS
Mountains dominate the Afghan landscape, and more than 49 percent of the total land area lies above 2,000
metres. In general, these mountains consist of non-arable land and therefore masses of Afghan land are only
suitable for animal grazing. No wonder, therefore, that this so-called grassland-based system is strongly represented. Afghan nomads (Kuchis) depend heavily on these
mountain rangelands, which provide both fodder and water for
their animals.
These people and their animals winter in the lowlands and move
to the mountain pastures in summer. They are important small
ruminant producers, as they own about one-third of the national
flock. They keep about four sheep for every goat, but they also
have donkeys, horses and camels for transport; some wealthier
families might also own and use a vehicle. Alongside the nomad
system is the well-known Karakul Sheep Production System;
the production of so-called Astrakhan pelts from Karakul sheep
is a highly specialised form of sheep production practised principally by villagers in northern Afghanistan. The Karakul’s ability to
produce milk, meat and wool under very extreme climatic and
Figure 3: Pasture in Bamyan, June 2009,
ecological conditions is attributable to the their special characaltitude 2,600m (Photo: Ambika Gautam)
teristic of storing fat in their tails.
Mixed Farming Systems
Mixed farming encompasses different forms and degrees of crop and livestock production. It is classified according to the kind and degree of external input use and plant nutrient cycling on the farm. The degree of input
use is essentially related to the outfield/infield ratio, i.e. the area of land available for grazing outside the farm
(outfield) in relation to the feed requirements for animal production (draught, dung, milk, meat, etc.) and manure
requirements for crop cultivation on the farm (infield). The various sub-systems presented below can in principle
all be found in Afghanistan and tend to vary over time. Thus, a sub-system might be popular in one period and
less so in another. Market forces play a role, but in Afghanistan it is security that has been the most decisive
factor over the last two decades.
Mixed systems making use of communal grazing land have a high outfield/infield ratio. The area of outfield
required to supply enough manure for one hectare of cropland is known to be around 20–40 ha. Where these
pastures are available, it is often uneconomical to harvest and conserve fibrous crop residues or improve housing for manure collection. In general, crop residues are left in the field to be grazed, and animals are gathered
in corrals or night pens. The manure collected there can be used to sustain crop cultivation. The system is
characterised by its throughput of nutrients with a low level of output in terms of animal products such as milk
or meat. The small ruminants owned by Afghan villages (two-thirds of the shoats3) are usually herded together,
and both depend on grazing for the majority of the year - lowlands during the winter, highlands in summer.
Large owners may employ their own shepherd, or family members of villagers join together to herd their flocks.
Hay, straw and leaves (from evergreen oaks, in particular) and occasionally concentrates (e.g. 200-450 grams
of barley) are given during the winter by way of supplementary feed.
Mixed systems using crop residues entail an expansion of the area under crop cultivation, generally at the cost
of pastureland, which has a double impact on the outfield/infield ratio: less pastureland (less outfield) and more
cropland (more infield). The reduced availability of outfield engenders an increased need to keep and recycle
resources on the farm. Crop residues become more important, and mixed systems emerge, in which crop residues form the principal feed resource. The function of animals changes from the collection of nutrients from
outfields to the cycling of nutrients on infields. This requires different ways of keeping animals: stall-feeding
instead of grazing; more limitations in the number of animals that can be kept; selection of specific animal types,
draught animals or cow-calf production; placing of surplus stock in grazing systems; etc.
Mixed systems with cut and carry require a further increase in land use for crop cultivation, which often results
in restrictions on the free grazing of animals. Tethering and the collection of feed from roadsides, other communal land and neighbouring farms therefore replace grazing on communal land, and mixed systems based on
cut and carry appear. In short, human labour (men, women and children) replaces the energy used by grazing
animals to collect their feed.
Mixed systems with feed from the farm entail access to more land relative to the outfield and can reduce labour
costs by growing more fodder crops on the land. They can emerge in mixed systems with feed from the farm.
3
SHOATS = SH(eep) + (g)OATS
Conceptual Note SLMP Training of Resource Persons on Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Management
3
The cultivation of fodder crops on the farm can in addition contribute to: erosion prevention (soil cover, boarder
vegetation); nitrogen fixation (legume plants, shrubs and trees); mobilisation of nutrients from the soil (catch
crops); improvement of soil structure (organic matter content); provision with by-products (fuel and construction
wood, flowers for bees); and more varied crop rotation. In general, it is the combination of benefits that makes
farmers decide to plant fodder crops. The primary reason does not always have to be for livestock feeding. The
system is characterised by intensive cycling of plant nutrients on the farm (infield).
Mixed systems with external feed can evolve from any other mixed system, but are characterised by inputs of
plant nutrients through livestock feed from outside. This makes it a throughput system. The principal differences
with earlier throughput systems, mixed communal grazing and cut-and-carry systems is that the feed is of high
quality and that it originates from distant outfields, whereas the other systems rely on feed of moderate to poor
quality from local outfields. The Afghan village cattle system (in 1991 82% of farming households kept cattle,
2-4 on average) is a kind of traditional zero-grazing system, since most are kept within the household compound
and hardly go out to graze. Nonetheless, one does observe roadside grazing or tethering near the house. Yet
there are regional differences - in the northern provinces and the Herat area, where communal grazing of cattle,
including cows, is common practice. In some parts of Nuristan and the Hazarajat in central Afghanistan, cattle
herds are moved to higher pastures for cheese and butter/ghee production during the summer.
Feeding systems based on nutritional “demand” rather than on
availability
The LPSs in Afghanistan have been developed around the prevailing climate and the availability of water, feed and fodder; they are, in principle,
sustainable systems. Aiming, therefore, to maximise the output per animal
(in terms of eggs, meat, milk, etc.) does not necessarily provide the best
return on labour or capital invested, nor does it ensure environmental sustainability.
From a Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA) point of view,
roughly four systems can be recognised: ranching, intensive large-scale
Figure 4: Differentiation between
farming, smallholder farming, and pastoralism. They differ according to
four major livestock systems
the intensity of land use (on the horizontal axis in Figure 4), varying from
extensive land use (left) to intensive land use (right) and they differ in
terms of the level of inputs (vertical axis) and diversity within the system,
varying from subsistence, low-input and high diversity (bottom) to commercial high-input and low diversity (top).
In principle, each of these four systems has a role to play in livestock development in countries in transition –
and each can be optimised to achieve improved production and increased sustainability. Each of these four
systems has its own specific objectives, potential, limitations and “right to exist”. At the same time, these
livestock systems affect the environment and livelihoods in different ways. A combination of the different
systems is often found within one household or farm, e.g. when an intensive dairy cattle farmer also keeps
chicken and sheep on a low-input basis; or when a producer on a mixed farm keeps sheep on a pastoralist
basis. Most livestock-dependent people in Afghanistan can be classified as either sedentary farmers or
transhumant, nomadic pastoralists.
Author(s): Lucy Maarse, April 2014
Further readings and references




FAO, 1995: Livestock Classification System, available at:http://www.fao.org/docrep/v8180t/v8180T0y.htm
Rangnekar, D., 2006: Livestock in the livelihoods of the underprivileged communities in India: A review.
ILRI, Nairobi, Kenya.
Rota, A., 2012: Livestock Thematic Papers: Value chains: Linking producers to markets. IFAD, Rome.
Van der Ploeg, J.D., 2009: The New Peasantries: Struggles for Autonomy and Sustainability in an Era of
Empire and Globalization. Earthscan, London, UK.
2014. This document is made available under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-CommercialShareAlike 4.0 International license
This publication has been made possible through financial
support of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
SDC. The content, however, is the sole responsibility of
HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation.
Conceptual Note SLMP Training of Resource Persons on Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Management
4
Annex: Livestock Value Chain
The livestock value chain can be defined as the full range of activities required to bring a product (e.g. live animals, meat, milk, eggs, leather, fibre, manure) to final
consumers via the different phases of production, processing and delivery (International Development Research Centre, 2000: A handbook for value chain research,
Ottawa, Cananda).
Annex 1: Framework for Livestock Keeper Value Chain (Rota, 2012)
Conceptual Note SLMP Training of Resource Persons on Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Management
5
Annex 2: Example of a sheep value chain in Baghlan Area, Afghanistan (Geerlings, 2012)
Conceptual Note SLMP Training of Resource Persons on Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Management
6