Livestock farming forms an important component of Botswana's agriculture and contributes a larger share to agricultural output. Within the livestock sector the dominant subsector is beef, which a major contributor to the livestock sector's output and one of the country's major foreign exchange earner. In addition, the beef sector is a sector in which many indigenous Batswana have participated in, hence important for wealth creation and poverty eradication especially in the rural areas where poverty is more pronounced. As a result of this, livestock policy has tended to favor the beef sector at the expense of other subsectors such as small stock. In recent years the Botswana livestock industry has faced numerous challenges, especially the beef sector. These include outbreaks of drought and diseases such as foot and mouth, delisting of the country from exporting its beef to the European Union (EU) because of the dysfunctional livestock trace back system (LITS). All these challenges impact negatively on the competitiveness of the livestock sector, especially the smallholder livestock farming.

The paper identifies underlying factors behind farmers' market participation decisions and level of commercialisation of South African small scale farmers with a particular emphasis on transaction costs. The two-step decision making process is analyzed based on Agricultural Household Model that incorporates transaction costs using a Heckman selectivity procedure. The key importance of non price factors such as transaction costs over price factors come out clearly. Marginal effects are calculated and decomposed into market entry and intensity. The result showed that while both transaction costs and output prices are important for market entry and intensity; transactions costs have significant negative effects and have induced institutional innovations-such as belonging to farmers group and cooperating with white commercial farmers; and owning transport facilities are emerging to mitigate the costs of accessing markets. Consequently, price interventions to promote market access are likely to solicit a greater volume of additional supply from peasants entering the market for the first time. Overall, the findings clearly highlight the importance of non price policies to address explicitly the conditions of low productivity and low capital endowments of resources of poor farmers in order to promote surplus market supply and alleviate poverty.

Background: Achievement of food security is an important objective in the National Development Plan of Botswana. This study set out to characterise food security situation and food consumption patterns among livestock keepers in Botswana. The study also sought to determine the effect of various factors (including livestock-related issues) on nutrition/food consumption patterns of livestock farmers in Botswana. Data used in this study come from a survey of smallholder livestock producers conducted by the International Livestock Research Institute and its partners in Botswana in 2013. A food consumption score (FCS) is a qualitative measure of food security constructed using data collected at a household level, and to investigate the influence of various factors on food security and consumption patterns, both logit and OLS regression were used. Results:Results show that purchase was the chief source of foodstuffs (including main staples) in these households. About 20% of households claimed that they had suffered lack of food at least once during the preceding 12 months prior to the collection of data used in this analysis. Nearly all of them reported having had to endure going to bed hungry. Application of the World Food Programme (WFP) FCS methodology of food security analysis supported this claim. Based on the FCS, about 9% of households were food insecure. This category constituted 6% that ranked poorly and 3% that were on the borderline according to the WFP's definition of food security. These findings justify continued efforts to ensure realisation of food security among livestock keepers in Botswana. Conclusion:The results from this study justify continued, but well-targeted efforts to ensure realisation of food security among livestock keepers in Botswana. The significant effect that livestock keeping has on food security implies that promotion of the livestock activities, especially in the rural areas, could foster alleviation of malnutrition, especially among the poor.

The objective of this study was to determine the practicality of using linear body measurement traits to predict live weight of goats and sheep under communal grazing in three districts of Botswana, namely Central, Kweneng, and Kgalagadi. Pairwise (Pearson) correlations were estimated using bodyweight (BW) and morphological trait measurements, namely heart girth (HG), shoulder height (SH), and body condition score (BCS) for a sample of 1447 goats and 588 sheep. These ranged from 0.19 to 0.94 for goats and 0.44 to 0.94 for sheep, and were statistically significant. In both animals, regardless of sex, the highest positive correlations were found between BW and HG, followed by BW and SH, then BW and BCS. The direct and indirect relationship between BW and morphological traits using a path analysis approach were also estimated. This analysis suggested that the direct effect of HG on BW was higher at 0.761 for male and 0.662 for female goats, respectively. Similarly, the direct effect of HG on BW was higher among sheep at 0.764 for males and 0.882 for females. The direct effects of SH in all the animals were also positively influenced by BW. It was concluded that among these three morphological traits, the most valuable for estimating the BW for goats and sheep in Botswana is HG, followed by SH. BCS was found non-significant. Path analysis therefore has an advantage over previous empirical studies by providing more detailed information on the relationships (direct and indirect) between these variables. A further implication of this study is that a conversion table could be constructed to help smallholder farmers to estimate the live weight of their sheep and goats from linear measurements. This would aid in the management and marketing of their livestock.

The level and determinants of technical efficiency in milk-producing households are examined in connection with households’ level of commercialization. A sample of 469 milk producers are modeled using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). Average Technical Efficiency (TE) is estimated to be 80%, with variation among regions and generally reflecting levels of commercialization. Results show that assuming milk producers are rational, TE is increased by increasing the number of cattle, cows, and crossbreeds, and by additinal veterinary and feed inputs. These results support much existing research, and our contribution is the extension of analysis to actions and characteristics of the value chain due to commercial behaviors. We identify both direct and indirect potential effects of commercialization and identify mechanisms for their operation in development programs for commercial value chains. We find that credit access, training, group membership, market participation, and female household all improve TE while non-cattle income would reduce TE. We present sub-groups of households to better contrast levels of productivity and compare a limited number of the sub-groups' characteristics and actions. We provide commentary and explanation regarding commercialization and its direct and indirect connections to productivity. Recommendations include partnerships and facilitating actions that support commercialization, in association with improving efficiency in Tanzanian dairy.