Desirable Cattle and Ethiopian Development

In 1950s Ethiopia, “development” required the construction of new buildings and the paving of new roads, but it also demanded the alteration of living things. The foreign scientists and technicians who came to Ethiopia throughout the decade worked diligently to change living conditions by altering the lives of the country’s nonhuman inhabitants. They tried to modernize the living landscape by populating it with superior livestock and higher-yield plants. Cattle were placed at the forefront of the effort. International technicians and national officials shared a common determination to turn Ethiopia into a key meat-producing participant of the regional, and eventually the world, food market. At first, the nation’s farmers and its livestock were deemed ill-equipped for the task. They had to be improved. Foreign technicians vowed to educate the farmers, introduce equipment, and change the livestock through controlled breeding, care, and feeding that promised to turn locally acceptable cattle into globally marketable ones. Ethiopian farmers and herders needed to learn to value their livestock more for what they offered in death than in life. In the new Ethiopia, cattle were supposed to be prized for their parts rather than for their whole, a move that reversed centuries of practice. Instead of desiring expansive herds of questionable health and limited productivity, famers would grow to appreciate a smaller number of meaty, “vigorous” stock that could become tinned beef and stretched hides. The livestock program began with foreign-provided vaccines and grain and ended at foreign-funded slaughter houses.  Human development fundamentally transformed the lives and deaths of Ethiopia’s cattle. This essay will explore the social, economic, and environmental costs of that transformation.