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What proportion of household income comes from market-related activities?
Annual cash income from livestock sales as a percentage of total income (food and cash)
The importance of livestock sales
Pastoralists naturally score highest: in Oromia their cash income
All households
(weighted average)
Percentage of min.
calories required
per hh per year
1 - 35%
36 - 70 %
> 70 %
No data
from livestock is in fact the equivalent of roughly 250% of
calorie requirement on average, followed by Somali (180%) and
Afar (100%). Agropastoralists naturally score next highly.
But perhaps the real story here is the widespread cropping areas
where livestock (including poultry) and butter sales bring in
upwards of one-third of total income – sometimes much more.
This does not mean these are all the wealthier areas: in Amhara
the far north-west is wealthy in both crops and cattle, but much
of the east is in food deficit. In Tigray, with its generally poor
crop performance, the better-off commonly obtain more than
half of their cash from livestock, sometimes more than 70%. In
most of that region even the poor get over one-third of their
The Market & Livelihoods
Very poor and poor
households
Better off
households
total annual income from livestock. This begins to approach
agropastoralism. It is also remarkable to see that much of the
most crowded part of SNNPR owes more than one-third of total
income to livestock and butter sales. The great geographical
span of cropping Oromia contains every gradation; but cattle,
especially in lower-lying ecologies, are a particularly important
resource in both the wealthy west and the generally poorer east.
The Livelihoods Atlas for Ethiopia The Livelihoods Integration Unit 87