Abstract:
Livestock are essential to the economic, nutritional and social wellbeing of African farmers. Besides providing food, clothing and other products, they are a measure of wealth and social standing; they are used for barter, as lobola (bride price) at traditional weddings, and also as a ‘bank’, whereby animals can be sold to pay for emergency needs, such as funerals. Given the diverse uses of livestock and their socio-economic importance in farming communities, the loss of even a single animal has a significant, and sometimes crippling effect on a family.
