Botswana’s cattle industry is getting smaller, even as commercial farmers expand their share of the national herd.
The country’s cattle population fell to 1.64 million in 2025, from 1.74 million a decade earlier, representing a 6.1 percent decline, according to Statistics Botswana’s 2025 Agricultural Census. The latest figures underline the pressure on a sector that remains important to Botswana’s agricultural economy.
The contraction has been accompanied by a deterioration in key livestock indicators. Cattle births declined 14.3 percent to 373,807, while deaths rose 30.7 percent to 143,076 between the two census periods.
But beneath the headline decline is a more significant structural shift. Botswana’s commercial cattle sector expanded during the decade, with the number of commercial holdings rising 12. percent and their cattle population increasing 18.8 percent, from 383,699 to 455,739.
Commercial farmers also increased their average herd size from 295 cattle per holding in 2015 to 312 in 2025. By contrast, the traditional subsector saw its cattle population fall 13.1%, while average herd size declined from 36 to 33 cattle.
The numbers point to an increasingly divided industry: commercial operators are scaling up while traditional cattle production is losing ground.
For businesses servicing the livestock industry, this shift could have implications for demand for animal health, feed, equipment, transport and other agricultural services. A smaller national herd, meanwhile, raises questions about future supply capacity.
Statistics Botswana cautions that the census does not identify the causes of the decline, noting that factors such as drought, disease, slaughter, imports and exports need to be considered when assessing movements in cattle numbers.