Livestock's Contribution to Poverty Alleviation: How to Measure It?

The difficulty of valuation of livestock outputs has strong political and economic implications for farmers because policies require metrics. Based on a case study in Mali, this paper gives different estimations of the contribution of livestock to reducing poverty using different methods, from the most common measure-based approaches, that is, a financial approach, to an asset-based approach. The results show that the asset-based approach reflects the roles of livestock in terms of security (money cash) and vulnerability. But only a dynamic approach to indicators can account for the complex role of livestock in reducing poverty. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.