Productive Potential, Market Access and Smallholder Livestock Production: Evidence from southern Zambia

Abstract

This paper uses household data collected from livestock-rearing communities in 3 districts in
Southern Province of Zambia and corner-solution econometric models to measure the effect
of productive potential and market access on livestock production. We also test for the
existence of heterogeneous effects across agro-ecological regions, livestock species and
poverty levels. To the best of our knowledge, no study has done this before. The findings
identify the need for policies and interventions that are aimed at strengthening
livestock-based livelihood systems to be responsive to not only the target groups but also
productive potential and market access characteristics of the communities in which they live.
The livestock systems inherent in the various districts and communities also need to be
explicitly taken into account.