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This study investigates the effects of climate change on animal husbandry in Africa. Cross-sectional methods are used to estimate the sensitivity of African livestock to climate, based on surveys of almost 5000 livestock farmers across ten countries.

Findings include:

• livestock net revenues, the number of livestock per farm, and the earnings per livestock are all highly sensitive to climate
• climate sensitivity varies according to farm size - net revenue per farm for large farms decreases with higher temperature but increases for small farms
• large farms reduce the size of their herds dramatically with higher temperature but small farms enlarge their herds. Small farms switch from crops to livestock and switch from temperate animals to heat tolerant animals. Large farms tend to specialise in livestock and especially beef cattle, for which there is no comparable substitute
• although rainfall generally increases crop and grassland productivity, the study shows that increased rainfall reduces livestock net income
• effects of climate change on livestock may be evident as early as 2020 and are predicted to increase over time
• the results in this study contrast with the analysis of the climate sensitivity of livestock in the US, which found that American livestock were not climate sensitive.

The authors conclude that aid programmes to Africa must carefully consider how they can help African farmers adapt to climate change and such adaptation should vary geographically depending on conditions. They also highlight that, in practice, many things will change over the next century, including population, prices, technology and institutional conditions. Future livestock owners may take advantage of new technologies that are not commonly used today in most of Africa, such as shade and sprinklers, while genetics and breeding may offer some new choices for farmers.

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