Botswana Cattle Population Declines Drastically

Botswana cattle population has declined dramatically from 2010 to 2019. Poor farm management, poor birth rates, high mortality rates and cattle theft are some of the reasons attributed to why the numbers have been on a downward spiral.

Botswana, which used to boast a cattle population of around 3million at one point, now has just over 930 000 cattle... Share on X

The annual agricultural surveys, which are conducted by Statistics Botswana mainly in the local traditional sector, indicate that the cattle population in Botswana continues to go on a downward trend. The reports show that in 2011 there were 2.55million cattle in the country. This was a slight decline from 2010 when the cattle population was 2.63million.

In the following survey, the numbers went down again, this time from over 1,36million in 2015 to around 1,15million in 2017. The major cause of the decline in this period was in part due to the 2015/2016 drought, which was declared the worst in three decades. One of the casualties of that drought was the Gaborone Dam, which dried up leaving the inhabitants of Gaborone, Botswana’s capital city, and the surrounding towns surviving on water cuts.

It is not just the cattle population which has declined drastically in Botswana, farmers have left the cattle sub-sector in droves. There were close to 80 000 cattle holdings in 2010, that number dwindled to just under 30 000 as per the 2019 agricultural survey, a more than 62% decline.

When speaking at one of his official engagements early last year, the Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, Mr. Karabo Gare, attributed the decline in cattle population to the effects of Climate Change induced droughts, and said that unless drastic action is taken, the plummeting cattle numbers could be detrimental to Botswana’s economic growth.