The livestock resource is an important economic subsector which supports both the agricultural income and the nation’s Gross Domestic Production (GDP). It contributes about 13% of the annual export earnings. However, as Ethiopia has un-delimited long distance border with the neighboring countries, the large amount of unregistered cross border trade negatively affects the nation’s economic gains. Not only these, cross border trade made the nation vulnerable to smuggling of armaments from the neighboring counties which aggravate domestic violence.
Birhanu Gebremedihin is an agricultural economist specialized in livestock and working as a consultant for various local and international none governmental organizations for the last three decades. As to him, despite the nation has huge resources, the predominant traditional way of cattle rearing practice has restricted the sector’s growth and made it remain subsistence.
At the household level, livestock plays crucial economic role in the lives of pastoralists, semi-pastorals and supports small holder farmers in the high land parts of the country.
As the community is defined in a low income brackets, the sector serves the people to cope sever situations induced by climate change and global warming. Traditionally, pastoralists in the peripheral regions are not reached by modern finance system. Hence, animals are used as accumulated capital and movable property.
In time of hardships, they are exchanged in to money even with less optimal price to purchase other vital consumption products. The government is convinced that the livestock sub sector plays critical role in the ongoing efforts of poverty alleviation and support the economy. Often its policy in this regard is harmonious through various dimensions, encouragements in terms of budget regulation and institutional arrangement and marketing.
Among the bi-products of livestock, hide and skin production is commonly practiced as an additional source of income and the leather industry sector is one of the growing economic sectors in Ethiopia. However, the sector is constrained by different factors like external parasites, inappropriate management of animals and faults during slaughtering, and improper handling of skin before reaching the tannery, so that the sector is losing a large amount of money due to the decline in quality and the fall in export price.
In the rural parts of the country where there is no modern abattoir, each house hold slaughters animals in the house yards and mainly the skins are used as sleeping item. The absence of market which absorbs animal skin in the rural parts also coerces them to use it for their own or throw it away as irrelevant item. Therefore, resource that can be exported and can bring foreign currency to the nation is simply wasted.
According to the Ministry of Industry, 27 tanneries in Ethiopia produce all of the hides and skins and supply finished leather to the domestic and export markets. These tanneries have an average daily soaking capacity of 107,850 pieces of sheep skin, 51,550 pieces of goatskin, and 9,800 pieces of hide. The annual capacity has reached approximately 48 million (32.4 million sheep and 15.5 million goat) skins and 2.9 million hides. However, the importance and uses of hide and skin production in the context of smallholder farmers were multidirectional. Data from the three districts of Gambella region (the outskirts of Gambella town, Godare and Lare) had shown that hide and skin are primarily used for income generation and secondly used for bedding purpose in all districts.
Ethiopian small ruminant skins, especially sheep skins, traditionally have a very good reputation for quality in the world leather market due to their fine grain and compact structure. According to the Central Statistics Agency report, the existing 27 tanneries in Ethiopia produce all forms of hides and skins and provide finished leather for the domestic and export markets. However, the capacity to process hides and skins greatly exceeds domestic supply, particularly for raw sheep and goatskins. Although Ethiopia has very good potential to produce substantial quantities of hide and skins, the quality of the hide or skin, to a large extent, is related to the attitude of the community with regard to the value of skin and hide.
In this regard, the leather industry sector is losing large amounts of money due to the decline in quality and the fall in export price. It is estimated that about one quarter to one-third of all the skins processed at tanneries are unsuitable for export due to various defects. Some reports indicated that the major problems affecting the leather and especially the tanning industry are related to skin diseases, scratches, scabs, and branding, poor pattern, flay cuts, putrefactions, and poor substances.
Based on annual offtake rates of 7% for cattle, 33% for sheep, and 35% for goats, the production stood at 3.78 million cattle hides, 8.41 million sheep skins, and 8.42 million goatskins in 2022/2023. The 7% offtake rate for cattle falls significantly below the African average of 12.71% and the world average of 20.31%. However, the offtake for sheep ranks slightly below the average level in Africa and the offtake for goatskin ranks slightly higher than the African average, although both remain well below the world average.
The percentage of skins having defects, which end up downgrading the quality, has increased tremendously in Ethiopia. Skin quality is primarily defined by the absence of damage to the grain layer of the skin.
Tanneries categorize only 10–15% of the collected skins’ qualify for top grades, with the rest being downgraded and sometimes even rejected. The quality of finished leather is related to a number of surface and structural defects that the hide and skin acquire during the life of the animal, during slaughtering, storage, and transportation stages. The causes of defects on raw hide and skin can be broadly classified as pre-slaughter and post-slaughter defect causes.
Recently, the senior researcher at the Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture Research (EAIR), Rehima Musema said that Ensuring well organized marketing system and establishing proper network among stakeholders in hides and skins value chain are instrumental in enhancing their contribution to the country’s economy.
Presenting a paper titled Hides and Skins (HSs) Production and Market: Status, Challenges and Prospects in Ethiopia at a workshop organized by the agricultural research institute recently, the EIAR Senior Researcher said that Ethiopia has abundant livestock resources and unique features of hides and skins. However as to her, there are outstanding challenges that need to be solved urgently.
pre-slaughter defects, post-slaughter flaws, shortage of chemicals, limited support for the sector, inadequate network of stakeholders in hides and skins value chain, among others, were raised as challenges to the sector. Also, lack of proper platform to integrate all pertinent stakeholders in hides’ and skins’ value chain starting from farmers and pastoralists to the market system has been a critical challenge in the sector.
The senior researcher further stated that solving quality problems, ensuring well organized marketing system and institutional support are very important to enhance the inclusive contribution of hides and skins to the country’s economy. Moreover, Rehima stressed the need for revising the policies towards hides and skins, leather and leather products.
The senior researcher finally urged all stakeholders to contribute their respective responsibilities to properly exploit the country’s abundant resources in the sector and increase its share in the economy. Ethiopia has abundant livestock resources and is ranked first in Africa and fifth globally in terms of livestock population.
According to the Ministry of Industry’s recent report, production process of some of the tanneries is interrupted due to lack of salt which is available in the Afar region that can be used as input to change the raw skin and hides in to leather since bringing the material to the center where the tanneries are located become harder as a result of instability in the region.
On the other hand, the chronic shortage of hard currency in banks hampered some tanneries from importing other inputs which are not available locally and this again restricted them not to enhance their production volume. Thus, collective effort to ease these bottlenecks is essential in order to get better of the leather sub sector, it was learned.
BY ABEBE WOLDEGIORGIS
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 4 JANUARY 2024
