| Abstract |
NATIONAL SAMPLE CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE (2007/2008)-LIVESTOCK SECTOR
Agriculture is an important economic sector of the Zanzibar economy in terms of food production, employment generation, production of raw materials for industry, and generation of foreign exchange earnings. The agricultural sector produces about 30.8 percent of GDP (Economic Survey, 2009) and the contribution of livestock was estimated to be 4.5 percent.
In 2007, the Government of Tanzania launched the Agricultural Sample Census as an important part of the Poverty Monitoring Master plan which supports the production of statistics for advocacy of effective public policy, including poverty reduction, access to services, gender, as well as the standard production data normally collected in an agriculture census. The 2007/08 Agricultural Sample Census was designed to meet the data needs of a wide range of users down to district level including policy makers at local, district, and National levels, rural development agencies, funding institutions, researchers, NGOs, farmers' organizations, etc. This report provides detailed description of the state of the livestock sub-sector in Zanzibar for the agricultural year 2007/08.
The detailed tabulations and analysis were based mainly on smallholder farms. In some cases,contribution of large scale farms is also included to give the overall Zanzibar estimates.The main types of livestock and poultry covered in the 2007/08 Agricultural Sample Census are cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, chicken, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, and donkeys. There was an equivalent of 170,715 livestock units in total representing a total of 228, 538 major livestock of different species. The goat livestock units were about 13,794, sheep were about 114.8 and pigs about 1,005 units. Chicken were kept by 60% of the households, while cattle were kept by 30% of the agricultural households.The trend shows that the number of goats increased by 31 percent, sheep by 18 percent and pigs by 10 percent per annum, while the number of cattle had declined by -0.9 percent between 2003 and 2008. The average number of cattle and goats per household were 4 and 9 respectively. Most of the cattle were kept in the Central district followed by Micheweni, Wete and West districts.
However, Micheweni district had more cattle rearing households than the rest of the districts. Milk production from cows during the wet season was115,021 liters (56%) and dropped to 87,490 litres(43%) during the dry season. Average milk production per cow was 2.5 litters during the wet season and 2.3 litres during the dry season. The number of milked cows also dropped from 44,718 during the wet season to 36,639 in the dry season. The price of milk was slightly higher than in the Mainland whereby the prices were Tshs. 508 in the wet season and increased to Tshs. 538 during
the dry season.
Regarding small ruminants, Central district has more households raising goats than any other district. About 4 percent of the agricultural households in Tanzania Zanzibar kept improved goats although, the number of improved goats was less than 20 percent. Sheep on the other hand are less important and only 574 households raised sheep most of which were found in the West disrict. With regard to chicken, over 90 percent of agricultural households raised chicken and a bigger proportion (21%) of chicken were kept in the West district and were dominated by the unimproved type (local). The trend shows that, the number of chicken has remained stagnant between 2003 and 2008. However, the number of layers has increased by 36 percent with an annual growth rate of about 7 percent, though there was a decline of 30 percent in the number of broilers. Apart from providing meat, milk and draught power, livestock supply organic fertilizers in terms of manure. In Zanzibar, a total of 6,806 households (7.7% of all households planting during Long rain) use organic fertilizers. Organic fertilizer was used on only 2,926 ha representing 7.8 percent of the total planted area during long rain season. Farm yard manure was used in all the districts but,was more common in the Central, South, North B and West. Mkoani and Chakechake were at the bottom in terms of organic fertiliser use.
Livestock diseases have remained the most challenging constraint in the livestock sector. Common diseases affecting ruminants include Tick Borne Diseases (TBD), Tse- tse fly infestations, FMD and Lumpy skin Disease. Almost 50 percent of the cattle raising households encountered Tick Borne Diseases, and the problem was more serious in the Central district followed by Chake chake, Micheweni and Mkoani. Spraying with acaricides was the most common method used to control infections. Dipping and smearing were the commonest methods of tick control. For chicken, the Newcastle Disease and the Fowl Typhoid were reported to be a challenge in most of the agricultural households and only 10 percent of the households vaccinated their chicken against theNewcastle disease.Access to extension services varied between the districts and Micheweni district had the highest access (79%) followed by Chakechake(74%), Wete and Mkoani districts, each with (65%). North 'A', West and North 'B'districts had less access to extension services. The government accounted for 50 percent of the extension services provided, other sources being NGOs/development projects,newspapers, radios, and televisions. |
