Source: The Conversation – Africa
The demand for donkey hides has grown exponentially over the past 15 years, driven mainly by demand from China. Lauren Johnston is a specialist on China trade with Africa. She has spent several years looking into the donkey trade, and has just published a book, China, Africa and the Market for Donkeys. She answers questions about what she found.
What drives the demand? Which countries have the biggest markets?
The demand is driven almost exclusively by China. The reason is that there’s an ancient traditional Chinese medicine called ejiao, pronounced “e-jyow”, that is now consumed by tens of millions of Chinese women. Ejiao is a donkey hide gelatin-based tonic for the blood. For millennia, it has been used to treat fatigue, dizziness, dry cough and irregular bleeding, and to support female wellness. For most of that time the elixir was handmade and consumed by a small circle of imperial elites. Only over the last few decades did production become industrially scaled.
I’m an economist rather than a nutritional scientist, but my understanding is that ejiao’s medicinal reputation is associated with its collagen-rich composition and the bioactive peptides produced during processing, alongside claims about the mineral properties of the water used in its production. While pharmacological research has identified potentially beneficial properties, the extent to which these translate into clinically established therapeutic effects remains contested. There is also a broader question as to whether comparable benefits could be obtained from alternative, more sustainable sources of collagen or related compounds.
The market for ejiao was until recently mainly medicinal. My book details the very recent – and stunning – commercialisation of ejiao and its transformation into an array of products, from cakes and drinks to cosmetics and other wellness products. Where ejiao sells at accessible prices in pharmacies both over the counter and by prescription, it also sells for thousands of renminbi at the premium end of the market. The lead producer, Dong’e Ejiao, spearheaded premium-end price increases greater than those enjoyed by Shanghai and Beijing property owners over the 2000s and 2010s.
There is also demand for it in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, Europe, Australia and south-east Asia.
How do African countries feature in terms of supply?
Africa is home to the world’s largest donkey population. As the ejiao industry began to run short of donkey hides from around 2010, the continent became a target of the supply chain, both legal and illicit. Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania were among earlier targets, given both their donkey supplies and closer geography to China. But demand for donkey hides – and the returns – grew to be so great that essentially no donkey in Africa was safe.
One donkey hide can fetch over US$400 in China.
Donkeys have been working animals in Africa for eons. The market is largely informal. Given the price their hide can achieve, donkeys are being sold even though their work is vital. Added to this, the slow breeding rate of the donkey is affecting supply. The cycle presents a compounding extinction risk.
Porous and remote borders, different regulations and patchy application of regulation has made stemming the trade almost impossible. My book elaborates Tanzania’s experience. The country gave up trying to secure a continent-wide formal agreement to halt the trade. This was after its frustrations with donkey smuggling across the Kenyan border especially, its failure to regulate slaughter numbers and standards, and a failure to develop sufficient breeding programmes.
What steps have been taken to halt exports? Have they worked?
The first Pan-African Donkey Conference in 2022 included representatives from the African Union InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), the government of Tanzania and other government representatives from across the continent, alongside donkey welfare charities, think-tanks and academia.
The outcome of the event was the Dar es Salaam Declaration, which called for a 15-year continental moratorium on the slaughter of donkeys for their hides. The February 2024 37th African Union Summit would back their call and agree that moratorium. This was an historic moment for the protection of African biodiversity and the rural poor, women especially.
But implementation has been imperfect as it requires each member country’s laws to be changed and those laws to be implemented consistently. Progress is underway, but far from enough to save the donkey, let alone the welfare of communities who rely on their work for physical and economic mobility.
Banning trade can send it underground and across borders too. South Africa’s limits sent supply through Lesotho, where abattoir standards are lower.
Why is the trade a problem?
Firstly, because supply can’t keep up with demand.
Current demand for ejiao requires 4-5 million hides a year, far more than China’s donkey stock can supply. Donkeys are notoriously slow breeders. The gap has been filled by a poorly regulated trade drawing mainly on Africa, which holds about two-thirds of the world’s donkeys.
The effect has been that donkeys are often stolen, depriving rural households of animals essential to their livelihoods. The Donkey Sanctuary, a UK-based donkey-welfare organisation, estimates that China imports more than three million donkey hides annually, of which 25%-35% are from stolen animals.
Secondly, the issue of price is affecting communities. Donkey prices have climbed beyond what poor families can afford. In South Africa a donkey that would have fetched about US$30 in the late 2010s sold for US$125 by 2022, when the moratorium was imposed.
This has had an impact on livelihoods, especially for women and girls. Donkeys carry water, firewood and farm produce across much of arid and remote African geographies especially. Owning one saves women some five hours of labour a week and children about ten, at least. When a donkey is stolen or priced out of reach, household income, food security and schooling suffer.
The trade also breeds fear, suspicion and conflict within communities.
And it has been linked to organised crime, inhumane slaughter and biosecurity risks.
What do you hope your book can achieve?
Readers of this book will learn as much about China as they will about the epic donkey market. This is a lens through which to understand China’s economy, history and global reach. And I hope this story might contribute to saving the animal.
China, Africa and the Market for Donkeys was published by Free Press Publishers (Nairobi).
Lauren Johnston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/11/01/china-imports-millions-of-donkey-hides-from-africa-every-year-new-book-traces-the-drivers-and-impact/