Strategic Action for Transforming Animal Health Services in Tigray Region

Tigray region has 4.82 million cattle, 2.47 million sheep, 4.30 million goats, 6.19 million poultry, 886103 donkeys, 15664 horses, 11308 mules, 43332 camels and 293,184 beehives; which represents nearly 10% of livestock resources in Ethiopia (CSA, 2018). The livestock sector contributes a lot to the economy of the country, and is still promising to rally round the economic development through export earnings from live animals, hides, and skins to earn foreign exchanges to the country. Livestock products and byproducts provide animal protein needed for nutritional requirements of people. Draught animals provide power for the cultivation of the smallholdings and for crop threshing virtually all over the country and essential modes of transport to take holders and their families’ long-distances, to convey their agricultural products to the market places and bring back their domestic necessities. Livestock as well confer a certain degree of security in times of crop failure, as they are a “near-cash” capital stock. Furthermore, livestock provides farmyard manure commonly applied to improve soil fertility and used as a source of energy, prestige, and wealth/accumulation.