NASSIR Posted August 28, 2008 Good Business article. I think we should invest in our livestocks. WE have plenty of them. ------ Mauritanians Milk Herds For All They're Worth August 26, 2008 By David Gauthier-Villars From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NOUAKCHOTT Mauritania -- Baidy Boukhreiss, an accountant in the capital of this West African country, recently transferred $700 in savings out of the bank and into what he says is a more reliable investment: 15 goats. The animals graze in a field 120 miles south of the city. They give a little milk, but are mainly a "liquid investment," to be sold off should Mr. Boukhreiss, 41 years old, his two wives and four children need cash. "On weekends, I can relax in the countryside when I visit them," he says. A majority of the three million people in this mostly desert republic ditched rural life long ago and moved into cities. For many, however, their savings, are back in the bush, in the form of goats, camels, sheep and cattle. Mauritania has nearly 12 million head of livestock -- nearly as many as Canada, whose population is 10 times as big. Yet while there's lots of food on the hoof, little goes to feeding people. One-third of Mauritanian children are undernourished, by United Nations estimates. There are no modern slaughterhouses and only two small milk-processing plants in Nouakchott. These days, most of the country's livestock isn't fat enough to yield much meat or milk anyway because the increasingly high price of grain makes it expensive to feed them. "It's been tough. We got almost no camel milk this season," says Maryam Mint Abeiderrahmane, financial director of Tiviski, one of the capital's dairies. Add to this a lack of cultivated farmland and the result is that Mauritania imports 75% of its food, leaving it vulnerable to spikes in global commodity prices. Late last year, following widespread street protests in Nouakchott against high food prices, the government increased bread subsidies and the salaries of civil servants. More recently, pouring savings into livestock has become a hedge against political tumult. Earlier this month, Mauritania's military overthrew the country's first democratically elected president, the second such coup in three years. A new prime minister has been named, but it's unclear whether and when new elections will be held. "People invest in industries when they have confidence in the future, and that's not the case," says Mauritania's central-bank governor, Ousmane Kane. He says that he doesn't own any livestock, but that many of the bank's employees do. Political uncertainty can devalue a currency or prompt a run on a bank. But demand for milk never dies, Mauritanians say. Herds multiply quickly, and newborn animals can easily be sold in neighboring Senegal and Mali. During the Islamic religious festival of Tabaski, when animals are sacrificed, Senegalese buyers will pay up to $200 for a goat, versus about $50 during the rest of the year, says Mr. Boukhreiss, the accountant. Another reason the abundance of livestock hasn't translated into food relief: Owning these animals has become a status symbol, says Ahmedou Ould Soule, a professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Nouakchott, a teachers college. Mr. Soule wrote a 2002 study on farming in Mauritania for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. For centuries, Mauritania was a land of nomads. Extended families traveled with their herds of livestock, which were essential for carrying heavy loads and providing milk. The country gained independence from the French in 1960, and then in the 1970s and '80s, droughts killed off a large part of the animal population, forcing people to seek jobs in cities. Only the rich could still afford to own livestock. They hired shepherds -- including some of the same nomads who had sold them their animals -- to look after their livestock in the countryside. "It became a trend," says Mr. Soule. "If you had livestock, you were someone." The animals bred another kind of abundance: Wealthy Mauritanians used their animals' milk to force-feed young girls, perpetuating an old tradition in the country of fattening girls up so they could marry well, says Mr. Soule. That tradition has almost disappeared except in some remote areas, he adds. Mauritania has tried, over the years, to transfer the nation's vast livestock resources into the mouths of its people. In the early 1980s, for example, the government tried to take over control of all exports of meat and livestock. The move failed, in part because migrating herds were never in one place long enough for the government to pinpoint who their owners were, says Mr. Kane, the central banker. The country's livestock economy is still largely underground, with most transactions occurring below the radar of tax authorities. Foreign aid hasn't helped to solve Mauritania's food shortage, either. Many projects to develop irrigation systems and create farms along the Senegal River never got off the ground. And in some cases, food aid for people was used to feed animals, Mr. Soule says. The beginning of oil production in Mauritania in 2006 has only buoyed livestock investments. Some of the people who are making money from the oil business are using it to buy camels and sheep -- as well as pickup trucks, water-well drilling tools and satellite phones for their shepherds. Herds of 800 to 1,000 animals have multiplied across the country. Livestock investments aren't trouble-free. Bush fires can decimate entire herds. It's also a fast-moving business: If the daily rainfall bulletin, the financial bible for cattle investors, announces a drought in one area, owners "have to immediately call to get their herd moved," says Mr. Kane. Theft is a big problem, too, says Brahim Ahmed Salem Ould Mah, an aide to Nouakchott's general prosecutor. The three sheep he kept in a field in the south were stolen last year, on the eve of the Tabaski festival. The multiplication of herds is threatening ecosystems around the country, says Aminata Correra, an ecology expert at Mauritania's Banc d'Arguin National Park. Herds often graze on cultivated land, damaging crops and leading to fights between farmers and shepherds, says Ms. Correra, who keeps 13 sheep in the courtyard of her home in Nouakchott. Mr. Boukhreiss says he's always had a passion for livestock. His father, a customs officer who would move his family from town to town, always kept a herd of 200 to 300 cattle and sheep in his home village in the north. "It was like having a savings account," he explains. "If he needed money to pay for our tuitions or doctors, he could immediately sell one or two sheep." After buying his goats five months ago, Mr. Boukhreiss hired a shepherd, whom he pays $40 a month to tend to his herd in the riverside town of Rosso. "Who knows," he says, "perhaps in three years, I will have a ranch." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
