Divergent Terms of Market Integration of Agro-Pastoralists: Marketisation and Distress Selling of Livestock in South Omo, Ethiopia

Abstract

The increasing trend of livestock marketing and commercialisation, and its attendant socio-economic consequences, has attracted academic and policy interest. This study investigates the processes of linking pastoralists to the market, and the drivers which shape pastoralists’ response to the market. It adopts a comparative perspective, examining the market characteristics of livestock trade and drivers linking pastoralists to the livestock market in Benna-Tsemay Woreda, characterised by decades of exposure to the market, and a higher number of livestock heads marketed; and Salamago Woreda with about a decade of exposure to the market, and a lower number of livestock heads marketed. The study, therefore, contributes to an understanding of the functioning of livestock markets in pastoral areas (relatively) weakly and recently integrated to the market.