Classification of cattle and small ruminant production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper presents a classification of cattle and small ruminant production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A review of literature has shown that there can be as many classifications of livestock systems as there are criteria to classify them, hence the need for a systematic classification to aid the analysis of livestock development in SSA. Agroecological zones principally determine cattle and small ruminant production systems in SSA. A classification of cattle and small ruminant systems is presented based on the length of growing period, rainfall, cropping and mean temperature during the growing period. The main traditional ruminant production systems are grassland-based (pastoral) systems, occurring mainly in areas with less than 90 days of plant-growing period, and mixed production systems occurring in areas with more than 90 days of plant growing. Mixed systems can be further differentiated on the basis of temperature during the growing period, into lowland mixed systems (semi-arid mixed, subhumid mixed and humid mixed) and highland mixed systems (highland mixed and smallholder dairy system, which is a non-traditional system). The non-traditional ruminant production systems are ranching and smallholder dairy systems. The authors conclude that, although a further categorization of livestock systems at individual country level may be produced, the classification presented here could be a basis for the analysis of livestock production in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in livestock development analyses in which the individual livestock system is the unit of analysis.