Researchers compared the illicit trade in donkeys with that in wildlife used in traditional Chinese medicine – a practice that has been blamed for driving species such as the pangolin to the brink of extinction.

Historically, ejiao has been a “medicine for emperors” but today it is marketed as a mass-produced wellness product for China’s increasingly affluent population. The report also said that as the country ages – it will be home to around 400 million retirees by the 2030s – demand is likely to increase further.

Donkey skin, sea cucumbers seized from shipment arriving from Egypt

Although China gets donkey hides from countries such as Brazil, Pakistan and Australia, Africa is the key target of the trade, both in terms of the number of donkeys killed and the impact on small-scale farmers, the study said.

It also said that the animals’ breeding cycle – the female gestation period can last for more than a year – means they cannot be bred quickly to replace lost stock.

The study said that in 2020, the planet was home to some 53 million donkeys, 99 per cent of which were found in low and middle-income countries, and almost two-thirds of those – some 63 per cent – are found in Africa.

Lauren Johnston, the author of the report, said opportunities to export donkeys are limited because they largely retain their role as working animals and enablers of social mobility among the poor.

“When China’s ejiao demand disrupts this role decades before Africa’s poor are able to replace donkeys with mechanised vehicles, this not only fails to foster prosperity but may also see a return to poverty, especially among women,” Johnston said.

For the rural poor in Africa, donkeys are vital beasts of burden, especially in hot, dry and remote areas. Even in harsh environments, donkeys can travel long distances with a heavy load without showing signs of fatigue.

Johnston said the trade is sending “women and the rural poor in general backwards … right at a time when China is emphasising agricultural growth, productivity and poverty alleviation”.

She added: “This undermines goodwill for China too at the grass roots and even China’s poorest are priced out of the supposed health benefits to some extent.

How China’s demand for donkey skins risks ‘devastating’ African communities

“For me, the unfortunate part is that the donkey trade has evolved before Africa’s poor are ready to be left out of the donkey market and still be socioeconomically mobile without them (girls especially) and especially its illicit peer, driven by the revenues of the ejiao industry in China and the slowness of donkey reproduction in terms of relatively inelastic supply.”

Johnston said that given the huge profits being made in China’s ejiao industry and the restrictions on donkey exports imposed by some African countries, “there are cases of transnational donkey theft and smuggling, akin to the illicit trade in wildlife”.

She said across Africa there have been heartbreaking cases reported in which rural households have woken up to find their donkey stolen.

“There have been cases of villages discovering the skinned remains of their donkeys in a nearby field following an overnight poacher strike,” Johnston said.

Citing data from the Shandong Ejiao Industry Association, Johnston said the market for the traditional product has risen from 19.6 billion yuan in 2013 to 53.5 billion (US$7.8 billion in today’s prices) in 2020.

Janneke Merkx, the campaigns manager at UK-based charity organisation The Donkey Sanctuary, said ejiao has always been a luxury product which is held in great esteem culturally.

She said that as working animals used in Africa’s poorest communities, donkeys had been seen as animals with little value and traditionally there was hardly any demand for their meat or skins.

But suddenly this changed as the price of donkeys skyrocketed, fuelled by demand from China.

“Due to their increased value, theft became rampant, sometimes clearing entire villages of their donkeys in a single night,” Merkx said.

“And due to the price increase, people who were relying on these animals for their livelihoods were unable to replace their donkeys.”

In some African countries, such as Botswana and Kenya, the donkey population has been decimated, prompting bans on the trade in donkey hides in many places.

In 2016, Senegal was one of the first countries in Africa to instate a ban on the slaughter and exports of donkeys while Namibia, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe have all banned their slaughter.

Kenya has shut its four operational slaughterhouses, and is currently refusing to relicense them, while Tanzania closed its two operational slaughterhouses and imposed a 10-year ban on donkey slaughter.

Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent, currently bans their export and is considering legislation to ban their slaughter completely.

At the recent Pan African Donkey Conference in Tanzania, organised by the African Union’s Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources, a resolution was passed which included a 15-year moratorium on donkey slaughter across all member states.

These resolutions will be presented to the heads of state at the next AU summit.

“We urge the industry to cut ties with the global trade in donkey skins, and accelerate moves towards safe sources of raw materials, specifically in the field of cellular agriculture,” Merkx said.