Land tenure Agriculture and livestock

Afghanistan NRVA 2005 47 Table 41: Households owning different types of livestock or poultry The number of animals representing different types of livestock or poultry in the three categories shows that the largest numbers of animals are found in rural households; however, Kuchi households own a substantial share, particularly camels and small ruminants goats and sheep. The number of cattle estimated in NRVA 2005 is 6 below the estimates of FAO 2003; the estimates for the number of donkeys and poultry were 36 and 29 higher than FAO estimates. However, the number of horses, camels, goats and sheep estimated in NRVA were more than twice the estimates of FAO. The reason for this is that FAO 2003 did not fully cover the Kuchi about 23,000 Kuchi households were assessed while according to NMAK-2004 there are 150,000 Kuchi households in the country excluding those who were crossing borders during the winter who are the main managers of sheep, goats and camels. Table 42: Livestock and poultry ownership 10,000 NRVA 2005 Kuchi Rural Urban National FAO 03 difference Cattle 24.7 317.3 6,2 348.3 370.0 -6 OxenYaks 2.5 88.4 1.5 92.5 Horses 5.5 23.8 0.8 30.0 14.0 114 Donkeys 41.5 171.4 4.7 217.6 160.0 36 Camels 28.2 11.2 0.2 39.7 18.0 120 Goats 445.9 1,215.7 15.5 1,677.1 730.0 130 Sheep 785.7 1,259.9 30.8 2,076.4 880.0 136 Poultry 90.3 1,448.3 37.9 1,576.5 1220.0 29 The FAO survey 2003 was based on data collected in 36,700 villages covering around 3 million households while NRVA 2005 included 30,800 households in about 2600 communities or clusters representative of rural, urban and Kuchi households representing 3.9 million households nationwide. NRVA 2005 livestock figures rely totally on household surveys. The FAO survey was based on a more extensive number of villages, but not information gathered at the household level and it did not include urban households. This could explain the large differences for camels, sheep and goats, which have a higher degree of mobility than cattle or poultry. Imports of animals could also explain part of these differences, but there is no information to support this. As will be discussed in the following sections, NRVA 2005 shows that the perceptions of needs and priorities of the shura responses community level are largely influenced by the elders, who tend to dominate in the meetings. Possible overstatements by households surveyed in NRVA 2005 for these four types of livestock should be taken into account for livestock policy interventions. Kuchi Rural Urban National Cattle 48 53 5 45 Oxenyaks 8 19 1 15 Horses 13 4 1 4 Donkeys 67 40 2 35 Camels 42 2 4 Goats 68 38 2 34 Sheep 76 38 3 34 Poultry 54 52 7 44 Afghanistan NRVA 2005 48 Table 43: Average herd or flock size Kuchi Rural Urban National Cattle 2.7 1.9 1.8 2.0 OxenYak 1.7 1.5 1.9 1.5 Horses 2.2 2.0 2.0 2.0 Donkeys 3.2 1.4

3.6 1.6

Camels 3.5 1.6 1.9 2.6 Goats 34.1 10.4 12.8 12.7 Sheep 53.5 10.7

14.4 15.5

Poultry 8.7 9.2

8.6 9.1

This analysis includes only the households that reported owning livestock excluding 0 or missing values of that type of livestock. Kuchi households are largely dependent on livestock and poultry production, and they own more animals per household than rural or urban households. On average, the herd size of Kuchi households is 88 small ruminants sheep and goats, 8.7 chicken, 3.5 camels, 3.2 donkeys, 2.2 horses, 2.7 cows and 1.7 oxen. 18 The Kuchi national figures NMAK-2004 survey for the number of small ruminants were 50, camels 1.7 and cattle 1.2. These figures are about half of those in NRVA 2005. The findings of FAO 2003 indicate that in 2003 the national figure for ownership of cattle was 1.2 and that of sheep was 2.9, which is considerably lower than the NRVA 2005 figures. This difference could be due to the fact that FAO 2003 didn’t fully cover Kuchi population whose main livelihood component are livestock keeping especially small ruminants. Two alternative estimates, using NRVA 2005 data, are offered here as shown in the table below. Table 44: Average number animals by households Estimate 1 number of different types of animals per household Estimate 2 average number animals per households that own some type of animal Cows 0.9 1.4 Oxen 0.2 0.4 Horses 0.1 0.1 Donkeys 0.6 0.9 Camels 0.1 0.2 Goats 4.3 6.8 Sheep 5.3 8.4 Birds 4.0 6.4 The FAO estimates are in between the first and second alternative estimates. Differences in sampling approaches between NRVA 2005, FAO 2003 and the NMAK survey need to be taken into account before drawing conclusions about the dynamics of the national herds, or the composition at the household levels for Kuchi, rural and urban households. 18 The high figure for oxen could be due to the relative weight of these animals among the semi-nomadic Kuchi, who may be able to secure feed for their animals.