Ethiopia Livestock Master Plan.

This Ethiopia Livestock Master Plan (LMP) is a sectoral policy document at the national level covering the period of 2015–2020. The LMP is a five-year development implementation plan or ‘roadmap’, to be used to implement the Growth and Transformation Plan II (GTP II). The LMP sets out investment interventions—better genetics, feed and health services, which, together with complementary policy support—could help meet the GTP II targets by improving productivity and total production in the key livestock value chains for poultry, red meat-milk, and crossbred dairy cows.
The LMP contributes to poverty reduction and better food and nutrition security. For instance, according to the LMP, successful poultry interventions would allow the sub-sector to move to improved family poultry with semi- scavenging crossbreds and for substantial increases in the scale of specialized layer and broiler operations. Such a transformation would contribute considerably to reducing poverty and malnutrition among rural and urban poor, as well as increasing national income.
The LMP seeks to make livestock sector more productive and sustainable. It identifies the need for stronger policy, legal and institutional frameworks to support sustainable pastoral and agropastoral production, and proposes policy actions such as providing a substantially extended role to customary institutions.
The LMP seeks to enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems. Priority investment interventions are proposed, including: 1. Improvement of cattle dairy through breeding interventions, combining artificial insemination using exotic semen with oestrus synchronization in MRS dairy systems and in peri-urban milk sheds throughout Ethiopia; 2. Improvement of productivity of local breed animals (cattle, sheep, goats, and camels) for meat and milk through investments in genetic selection (recording schemes, etc.) and in animal health to reduce young and adult stock mortality, and by implementing critical vaccinations and parasite control programs; 3. Increase of public investment in rehabilitating range and pasture lands to improve feeding and animal management to complement genetic and health improvements; 4. Promotion of the importation and dissemination of improved semi-scavenging poultry breeds by the private sector and/or through public-private partnerships (PPPs), combined with the improved capacity of private animal health services to provide critical vaccines, in tandem with the continued promotion by the GoE extension services of improved feeding; and 5. Increase of specialized commercial production units and—where conducive agro-ecological and market conditions prevail—consequent increases in animal numbers for all three commodities, and the adoption of appropriate genetic, health and feed technologies. Complementary policy interventions include: Thepromotion of exports to more remunerative markets through the introduction of a practical and affordable system of animal identification and traceability, as well as food safety and animal health programs through the monitoring of abattoirs and disease surveillance; The promotion of substantial private investment in livestock product transformation through high value-added processing; etc.
The LMP seeks to improve national capacity for early detection and response to animal health emergencies through such strategic interventions as: Establish a disease early warning system and emergence preparedness unit to deal with the epizootics of diseases of major economic and public health importance; Advance the preparation of both generic and disease-specific emergency plans and operating procedures for priority diseases; Allocate the necessary financial and human resources to ensure rapid mobilization in response to disease outbreaks; Include animal disease emergencies as a component of the national disaster response plan.