Tackling the crucial issue of improving the effectiveness of livestock marketing, this book fills an important gap in the literature about pastoral economies in Africa. With case studies primarily focusing on Ethiopia and Kenya, the authors offer research from a variety of regional communities to explore issues of household sales behavior, price determinants, livestock market information systems, cross border and export marketing, and crisis period marketing. Firmly tied to recommendations for future research and policy, the editors contend that current thinking which asserts that more effective marketing will automatically achieve multiple desirable outcomes, including environmental benefits, may be flawed. The studies presented illustrate how it is possible to improve livestock marketing and achieve multiple desirable objectives through serious and coordinated effort. This book is important reading for all interested in livestock development and pastoral economies in East Africa.

John G. McPeak: John is an assistant professor with the Department of Public Administration at Syracuse University in New York. Following completion of his dissertation on pastoral economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and having previously worked with GL-CRSP as a researcher on the PARIMA project based in Kenya, John now manages the Livestock Trade in Ethiopia and Kenya (LiTEK) project as its principal investigator. John's research has been published in The American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Human Ecology, Human Organization, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Land Economics, Oxford Economic Papers, and World Development.

Peter D. Little: Peter is a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky. His 25+ years of research and more than four and a half years of field work have focused on three distinct areas: (1) Pastoral production systems, marketing, and social organization in East Africa, (2) The social dimensions of environmental degradation and political ecology, (3) and the social effects on rural communities of economic restructuring, globalization, and development. Peter is currently a co-principal investigator on the PARIMA project managed by GL-CRSP. Peter has produced more than 100 research publications and has served as an advisor or consultant to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Oxfam-USA, World Bank, USAID, JICA, and the Rockefeller Foundation.