Ecological Interventions to Enhance Goat Health and Livelihood Outcomes in Rural Sub-Saharan African Communities

Smallholder households in arid environments keep goats for nutritional security and livelihood sustenance due to their climatic resilience and portability as economic and non-economic safety nets. Goat health and performance are however often strongly limited by parasites, diseases and poor nutrition. Infection by parasitic gastrointestinal nematodes is rife due to costly anthelmintic drugs and limited extension services. It is often difficult, however, to quantify the non-economic impact of enhanced animal health on resource-poor farmers’ livelihoods in arid environments. We explore the relationships between goat ownership and health and livelihood outcomes, including role of nutraceutical supplementation in supporting goat health. About 56% of 787 smallholder farms analysed in Botswana owned goats, the number of goats owned strongly associated with ownership of other livestock and other assets, as well as household's self-stated food security status. A sample-wide tendency that goat rearing can create a form of economic buffer through propensity to market was linked to forms of supplementation and disease control. Combined, our results suggest that integrated disease control and supplementation through local nutraceutical plants holds potential to partially replace costly anthelmintic drugs, key to goat herd survivability and associated livelihood sustenance in arid environments.