The statistics2 in Table 1 provide overview of the cattle and beef industry in Laos. The country had 1.71 million cattle head (including draught and dairy cattle) in 2013. The turnoff number was 224,000 in 2012 with an average growth of 2.9% annually. The low turnoff rates indicate the un-commercialised beef cattle systems. Beef consumption per capita in Laos was estimated at 4.23kg in 2013 with an annual growth of 2.4%.
Table 1: Key facts about the industry 2000-2013
Source: adapted from FAO (2014)
According to the Agricultural Census Office (ACO, 2012), there were almost 783,000 farm households in Laos. 297,000 farm households (or 38% of the total farm households) had cattle. Table 2 shows the number of farm households with cattle in three regions. About 27% of total farm households in the northern region had cattle whereas 50% and 32% of total farm households in the central and southern regions had cattle respectively.
Table 2 Numbers of farm households with cattle
Source: ACO (2012)
Table 3 compares farm households with cattle between 1999 and 2011 in three regions and the whole country. Over the period, the number of farm households with cattle increased by 30%. The average number of cattle per farm household increased by 17% from 4.5 to 5.3 head which indicated the increasing trend of smallholders’ capacity to raise their cattle productivity. In the northern and central regions, the average number of cattle per farm household increased by 28% and 17% respectively from 1999 to 2011. An increasing access to input services such as veterinary services may contribute to increase cattle productivity.
Table 3 Comparison of farm households with cattle between 1999 and 2011
Source: ACO (2012)
Table 4 presents cattle herd sizes or percentage of cattle holdings in three regions and the overall figure for the whole country. About 58% of cattle farm households (equivalent to 172,260 households) had 1-2 cattle. These cattle farm households may be classified as traditional smallholder farmers whose livelihood focus in on diversified subsistence agriculture. They tended to live in more remote locations, and cattle were often regarded as accumulating capital or asset which was sold when cash is needed. Cattle seemed to be raised in extensive grazing systems with low cattle productivity and high mortality especially of young cattle. Low labour and capital inputs were expected to be found in these smallholder production systems.
In contrast, 28% of cattle farm households (83,160 households) had 5-9 cattle. These smallholder farmers may be regarded as smallholders who started to adopt more crop-livestock diversified and market-oriented production systems. They may be located in areas with high market access with increasingly specializing in producing many cash crop and cattle products. About 11% of cattle farm households (32,670 households) had 10-19 cattle. These smallholder farmers may be also regarded as diversified and market-oriented crop-cattle producers at the later stage, and may be ready to become specialized cattle farmers if they were able to increasingly access to credits, technical assistance in farm management and technologies, and input services.
There were only 3% of cattle farm households (8,910 households) having more than 20 cattle. A high proportion of these cattle farm households were found in the central region.
Table 4 Cattle herd sizes as a percentage of cattle holdings
Source: ACO (2012)
2 FAO data.
