Winners and Losers: Who Benefits from the Donkey Export Boom?
Winners and Losers: Who Benefits from the Donkey Export Boom?
The humble donkey—a beast of burden in much of the Global South—has become the unlikely centre of a multi-billion-dollar global trade. Driven by China’s booming ejiao industry (a traditional medicinal gelatin derived from donkey hide), demand for donkey skins has skyrocketed. Millions of animals have been slaughtered, prices have soared, and rural economies across Africa and Asia have been turned upside down.
But not everyone is getting rich. In fact, our analysis reveals a stark divide: the profits flow overwhelmingly to the top of the supply chain, while the heaviest costs are borne by the world’s poorest communities. So, who actually wins? And who loses?
📈 The Engine: China’s $5.5 Billion Ejiao Industry
Ejiao is considered a “superior good” in China — demand rises as incomes rise. With China’s expanding middle class, consumption has exploded. The numbers tell a dramatic story:
By 2025, premium donkey meat prices in China surged 71% year‑on‑year, from 105 yuan to 180 yuan per kilogram. China’s domestic donkey population collapsed — from nearly 11 million in 1992 to under 1.2 million today. The industry has simply moved its sourcing abroad: to Africa, Pakistan, and Latin America — exporting the environmental and social costs along the way.
❌ Loser: China’s own working donkey population (now virtually extinct at home).
🌍 Africa: Short-Term Gains, Deepening Losses
Africa, home to two‑thirds of the world’s donkeys, was the first major frontier. Initially, local prices soared: in Niger, a donkey that sold for €29 in 2012 fetched €122 by 2016. In Kenya, skin prices jumped from $65 to $165 in just six months. But the boom quickly turned to bust. According to UN FAO data, sub‑Saharan Africa’s donkey population fell by nearly 30% between 2010 and 2022. In Zimbabwe and Niger, the drop exceeded 60%. Ghana’s Upper East Region saw populations collapse from 13 million to just 14,000.
The Donkey Sanctuary’s 2025 report, Stolen Donkeys, Stolen Futures, documented devastating human costs:
- In one Kenyan community, 29 out of 30 women surveyed had their donkeys stolen.
- Household incomes fell by as much as 73% after losing a donkey.
- Women now carry firewood and water themselves for the first time.
Farmers in Ghana have reduced their cultivated plots from four acres to just one. Female farmers are migrating south to survive. As one Kenyan owner put it: “When donkeys are stolen, families are thrown into hardship.”
In response, the African Union adopted a continent‑wide moratorium on commercial donkey slaughter and skin exports in 2024, for 15 years. But enforcement is weak. Illegal trafficking has surged, with Nigerian customs seizing $2.5 million worth of donkey parts in a single 2025 operation. Ghana has become a transit hub for skins originating in Burkina Faso and Mali — countries where donkey populations are already “finished.”
📉 Loser: Rural smallholders, especially women and farmers.
🇵🇰 Pakistan: A Cautionary Tale in the Making
With African supplies restricted, Chinese buyers turned to Pakistan — home to one of the world’s largest donkey populations. The result has been catastrophic for the poor. In Karachi, the price of a donkey has risen from 30,000 rupees eight years ago to as high as 200,000 rupees today. For donkey‑cart owner Abdul Rasheed, whose only donkey died in an accident, that is out of reach. His annual income is less than 400,000 rupees.
Donkeys in Pakistan power brick kilns, transport goods, collect waste, and deliver laundry. Poor wage workers now compete directly with well‑financed Chinese procurement delegations. In April 2025, Pakistan’s Food Security Minister confirmed Chinese interest in establishing large‑scale donkey farms — effectively turning the country’s remaining working animals into an export commodity.
⚠️ Loser: Pakistan’s informal‑sector workers and cart owners.
🔄 After the Ban: The Trade Simply Moves
The African Union’s moratorium has not ended the donkey trade — it has merely shifted it. Pakistan is one new frontier. Brazil is another, with donkeys laundered through third countries like Benin before reaching China. Without a coordinated global regulatory framework, each new restriction simply pushes the slaughter to a jurisdiction with weaker protections. The Donkey Sanctuary warns that annual slaughters could rise from 5.9 million to 7 million by 2027. Africa alone could lose half its remaining donkeys by 2040.
⚖️ The Verdict: A Boom Built on the Poor
✅ Winners
- Chinese ejiao companies and their shareholders
- International traders who capture largest margins
- A small number of local middlemen in source countries
❌ Losers
- Rural women who relied on donkeys to carry water
- Farmers who lost ability to plough and transport crops
- Cart owners priced out of their own livelihoods
- Entire communities torn apart by donkey theft and trafficking
These are not accidental casualties. They are structural features of a trade that systematically externalizes its costs onto the world’s most vulnerable people. As long as the ejiao industry can extract raw materials without paying for the social and ecological damage, the cycle of boom, bust, and displacement will continue.
The rural communities of the Global South will keep paying the price.
🛠️ What Can Be Done?
- 🔒 Enforce the AU moratorium with cross‑border cooperation and custodial sentences for traffickers.
- 🌱 Support alternatives for ejiao production – plant‑based gelatin substitutes are emerging.
- 📦 Strengthen traceability so consumers know the source of animal products.
- 🗣️ Amplify local voices from affected communities in Pakistan, Kenya, Ghana, and beyond.
The donkey export boom is a textbook case of extractive globalization. The question is not whether we can stop it — but whether we have the will to try.
