Livestock production in the rangelands, although the only sustainable way of using this natural source of animal feed, is a risky enterprise. Major hazards to livelihood security include:
- Drought
- Livestock disease
- Civil unrest
The long-term well-being of rangeland users depends in large part on their ability to overcome periods of severe resource flux. Consequently, helping poor livestock keepers cope with and recover from both environmental and man-made hazards has been a major focus of IFAD’s programmes.
Traditional risk management strategies
Pastoralist
communities have developed a number of traditional coping mechanisms to
reduce the hazards imposed by an unpredictable environment. These include:
- Income diversification into:crops different animal species or breeds non-agricultural activities
- Investment in water points or extra feed
- Mobility, migration and raiding
However, traditional pastoralist risk management strategies are being undermined by socio-economic changes, such as:
- Growing populations
- Urban expansion
- Expansion of cropping
- Political instability
- Economic stagnation
- Land tenure disputes
- Settlement policies
As a result, pastoralist risk management has become an important focus of IFAD’s rangeland projects.
IFAD’s project activities supporting risk management
Alternative income-generation
The
provision of credit for microenterprises can widen pastoralists’ livelihood
options and improve household food security. In recent years, pastoralist
migration has become increasingly associated with the search for income-generating
activities rather than pastures for livestock.
The United Nation’s Development Programme Office to Combat Desertification and Drought (UNSO) reports that an increasing number of people in Africa are seeking to escape from risky farming on dry and degraded land by migrating, temporarily or permanently, to urban areas in search of work. Consequently, IFAD has found that support for alternative income-generating activities is a vital part of a total drought mitigation strategy.
In IFAD’s Special Programme for Africa, 80% of projects included income-generating activities, which were a major focus of the second phase. It was discovered that opportunities for income-generation (for example, by small-scale food trading and processing of small farmyard livestock) existed in the project areas, and support for these activities rapidly reduced the drought recovery time for many households and communities. Based on this experience, critical elements in the development of alternative income-generating activities were identified:
- A sustainable and appropriate rural finance service, capable of prompt delivery of loans of appropriate size and duration to meet client needs. This will depend on the willingness and ability of formal financial institutions to serve small borrowers and provide support for involving banks in a broader income generation support system.
- Small, homogenous and adequately trained credit groups. In certain areas, groups may also manage common input supply and output marketing systems.
- An overall improvement in market conditions, including better access to information and a reduction in transport costs.
- Drought Early Warning Systems and Contingency Plans
There are common economic conditions surrounding drought that transcend national and cultural differences and elicit common coping strategies:
Drought early warning systems should include:
- Field monitoring (of water availability, food production, condition of animals, human health and marketing trends). Current research is creating livestock-based monitoring systems, which evaluate dietary intake and energy levels of cattle through an innovative faecal-monitoring process. Preliminary results demonstrate that measuring changes in the nutrient quality of the forage base may provide far earlier warnings of impending environmental disaster than waiting until animals lose weight.
- Satellite monitoring, for example, the Geographic Information System (GIS).
- Coordination of data collection at district, local and central levels. District coordination is the best level to decide key characteristics for data collection and key partners. Local coordination is needed to collect and consolidate information at the provincial level and reduce crisis reaction times. Central coordination is necessary to ensure a standardization of field data collection, which helps to prioritize drought relief as needed and to disseminate remote sensing data among interested parties.
The ability to provide early warning of droughtswould avoid, in principle, many of the adverse economic and human costs that arise from herders having to commit resources each year before key rainfall outcomes are known. Reliable drought forecasts also allow national governments and donors to undertake more efficient drought relief interventions.
IFAD is involved in cutting-edge research in the development of early warning systems. IFAD’s Focal Point for Livestock and Rangelands is the Chair of the Program Administration Council (PAC) for the Global Livestock Collaborative Research Support Program (GL-CRSP) supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Among other issues, GL-CRSPthe program is investigating early warning systems for monitoring livestock nutrition and health for food security of humans in East Africa.
Once a drought has been detected, drought contingency plans need to be activated as soon as possible, on national, district, local and household levels:
- Stage One – Drought alert
There must be a consensus on drought indicators at community, district and national levels. Equally, categorisations of drought conditions, such as mild, moderate and severe, need to be decided. - Stage Two – Response processes
For each category of drought, specific and concrete actions and the level at which the tasks will be performed (i.e. district, national or local) should be decided upon. The roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders need to be clearly outlined. The effective co-ordination of all of the different actors in the drought response process is critical. - Key Factor – "Listening to local communities"
Local people are often overlooked in creating effective and sustainable contingency plans for droughts. IFAD’s experience has demonstrated that herders and farmers may often know the most efficient means of aiding drought response in their communities.
Marketing
Infrastructure
Local communities are enabled to destock the rangelands during times of stress and thereby greatly reduce economic loss by projects that strengthen appropriate and sustainable infrastructure, such as:
- Markets
- Feeder roads
- Meat processing facilities
Other Risk Management Activities
Good examples of further risk management activities supported by IFAD include:
- Savings and credit groups (Central African Republic)
- Livestock insurance (Mongolia)
