The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/19840 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.
Author: Unusa, Haman
Title: The new pastoralism : absentee owners, new technologies, economic change and natural resource management in the Sahelian region of far north Cameroon
Date: 2012-09-20
Summary
Traditional pastoralism in Sahelian Africa is a major source of subsistence livelihood, economic security, and ethnic and cultural identity. The possession of livestock enables households to obtain income for the purchase of goods and services. Pastoralism also provides beef, milk, hides and skins, and benefits the State in its contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, traditional pastoralism in the Sahel is witnessing a series of setbacks, including ecological and climatic adversities, dwindling space due to population growth, expansion of dry-land farming and irrigation agriculture, lack of competitiveness, inadequate policy support, and agro-pastoral conflicts.
This research study on ‘new pastoralism’ in the Far North Region of Cameroon has as its principal objective to call into question the purported endless mobility and flexibility of pastoralists in a non-equilibrium landscape (new range ecology) by investigating the ecological, economic, and socio-cultural causes of the decline in traditional pastoralism, which have led to increasing pastoral modernization. The study further explores the relevance of expanding market opportunities for pastoral products as well as the deployment of new technology in the pastoral modernization process. In the analyses of the results, it becomes evident that ecological, economic, and socio- cultural pressures impose limits on the space-demanding traditional pastoralism, causing a pastoral decline that engendered sedentarization of herders and modernization of their herding activities. The lessons learned from failed State-sponsored pastoral modernization projects in the form of ranches designed for commercial production in a non-equilibrium landscape paved the way for indigenous pastoral modernization, wherein sedentary pastoralists combine supplementary feeding for livestock and controlled mobility to ensure ecological sustainability and economic viability. The process of pastoral modernization was observed in this study to be a form of sustainable indigenous pastoral intensification, in which feed supplements (cotton-seed cakes and hulls), farm residues, cattle stabling, water provision through boreholes and water pump machines, and healthcare facilities, etc. are used in livestock raising. The ongoing pastoral modernization process therefore falls within the Boserupian agricultural intensification scenario, stimulated by diverse pressures and technology change which impact on the practice of regular mobility (constraints on non-equilibrium ecology). In addition, there are two entry points to pastoral modernization: from poverty and from wealth. Impoverished herders that have suffered from pastoral decline modernize their activities to ensure survival and livelihood perpetuation. For the rich, pastoral modernization is a form of investment and diversification of income source.
The findings on the livelihood studies (Chapter 3) show that the socio-economic disparities between the modern, sedentary agro-pastoralists and the traditional, nomadic
pastoralists are as wide as between the pastoralists and the farming/fishing communities.
The livelihoods of the modern, sedentary agro-pastoralists are much more diversified, as they are involved in livestock herding, crop cultivation, commerce, and artisanal production, while the traditional, nomadic herders depend mainly on livestock. Socio- culturally, the modern pastoralists are advantaged with better education, access to healthcare facilities, intense Islamization, and better housing, while their nomadic counterparts remain largely isolated. In terms of land ownership, none of the traditional nomadic pastoralists studied had certified land, while over 18 per cent of the modern pastoralists had proofs of legal claims to land. Given this legal access, the modern pastoralists increasingly assert ownership rights on lands that are exploited by the traditional nomadic pastoralists. The livelihoods of the traditional pastoralists were found to be more vulnerable to multiple threats, including adverse ecological and climatic adversities, agro-pastoral conflicts, unfavourable terms of trade, child kidnapping, and disease. These livelihood threats affect principally the economic, social, political, physical, and human capitals of the pastoralists. The livelihood of the woman is affected by diminishing milk yields, land degradation, and shortage of fuel wood.
Ecologically, it was observed that the presence or absence of water, pastures, and diseases impact pastoral development. The periodic scarcity of water imposes limits to vegetation growth, compels sedentary herders to resort to waterholes, and causes the migration of traditional herders to the floodplain. Pasture degradation results from the diverse activities of man, including overgrazing, firewood harvesting, slash-and-burn agriculture, bush fires, thorn bush invasion, and adverse climatic circumstances. Several response strategies, which run across a broad spectrum including mobility, market integration, herd diversification, feed supplementation, sales and slaughter, and social organization, are put in place by the herders to curb the ecological threats. The mobility of the herders is motivated by the search for water and pastures for livestock, inter- occupational conflicts, and household and livestock illnesses. In general, the factors which affect livestock indirectly impacted the pastoralists. As regards herd management strategies, the maintenance of a female-dominated herd for the traditional pastoralists and diversification of livestock species for the modern sedentary pastoralists predominate. Indigenous solutions such as herd size accumulation and partitioning into home and satellite herds were also observed in both situations. The use of indigenous knowledge in rangeland and cattle management, exemplified in the ecological analyses, illustrates how pastoralists have over time adjusted to difficult circumstances. Disease management practices include the use of modern veterinary medicine and good hygiene for the modern pastoralists, while the use of ethno-therapy characterizes the traditional herders. Small-scale ecological degradation was observed close to waterholes and wet- season nomadic camps.
In economic terms, access to the markets, inputs, infrastructure, and cattle wealth is seen to determine in a major way pastoral development in the Far North Region of Cameroon. In regards to access to the markets, emphasis is placed on the cattle markets, milk-transformation units, agro-industrial by-products, and subsistence needs for the herders. The traditional pastoralists are sidelined by milk transformation units because the pastoralists are unable to satisfy basic hygienic requirements. Both the modern and the traditional pastoralists face high transaction costs in cattle transport to the markets and the interference of middlemen in livestock sales. Access to the agro-industrial by- products by the modern pastoralists is hampered by increasing prices, especially for
cotton-seed cakes and hulls produced by SODECOTON. Rice bran produced by SEMRY is not widely used by the herders because no structure is available to transform it into consumable feed. The infrastructure that was left behind by the defunct Mindif- Moulvoudaye agro-pastoral project (vaccination crutches, waterholes) benefited mainly the modern agro-pastoralists, as they monopolized control. Cattle theft and child kidnapping for ransom are seen to be very detrimental to the pastoral economy, as this leads not only to financial losses but has also created a situation of uncertainty and rural insecurity particularly for the traditional pastoralists. In terms of livestock transfers and entrustments, it was observed that while the traditional pastoralist practice of inter- and intra-household livestock transfers is in decline, the modern pastoralists engage in livestock entrustments (halfiinage/khalifaaji) to relieve themselves from the cost involved in running a modern pastoral herd. Intra-household transfers include nanngage (loaned livestock), diilaaye (loaned milk cow), sadaakiye (dowry), and sakkaage (religious gift or zakat), while inter-household transfers include sukkaage (gift to a close relation), donaage (inherited livestock), and diilaaye (loaned milk cow). These transfers serve as economic buffers and also help maintain relations particularly amongst the traditional herders. At the same time, entrustments (hafiinage/alkaliiji) are on the increase due to the individualization of livestock ownership within the modern pastoral set-up.
Socio-culturally, competition between the pastoralists and the farmers/fishers as well as the existence of extensive wildlife sanctuaries hamper access to water and pastures.
The entry of new user groups into competition for land and water in Far North Cameroon became evident with the advent of large-scale irrigation projects (SEMRY), mechanized farming (SODECOTON), and national parks (Waza) run by government and private companies. The expansions in irrigated and rain-fed agriculture as well as the creation of extensive national parks have reduced available space and increased competition and conflicts over natural resources between peasant farmers, herders, and fishers. A shift in the balance of access to resources in favour of arable farming, due to the introduction of cash crops (cotton cultivation, rice farming, sugar cane production, etc.) in the rural economy, is evident. Traditional pastoral communities in this region have witnessed how their grazing lands have diminished and their traditional migratory routes have disappeared as a result of expanding crop farming on their rangelands. The encroachment into cattle corridors by agricultural fields, stray animals causing damage to crops, and disputes over access to water often trigger conflicts between herders and farmers/fishers. The inter-occupational conflicts in most of the cases develop ethnic connotations since farming, fishing, and herding are dominated by ethnic groups, in which we have Mousgoum fishers, Guiziga farmers, and Fulbe herders. This ethnic- group-based connotation is an aggravating factor for competition over land resources, further fuelling the conflicts. The conflicts intensify in the hot-spot areas (cattle corridors, mares, and fishing canals) as a result of the number and interests of resource users and stakeholders involved and the socio-economic and political linkages they create with the larger community. The farmers clash with the herders over cattle damage on crop fields adjacent to grazing lands (encroachment of farmers into grazing lands) or found along transhumance corridors. On their part, fishers clash with the herders in the Waza-Logone transhumant floodplain over the destruction of fishing canals and fish traps by traversing cattle and over fishers’ monopolization of waterholes meant for cattle. In addition, the intrusion of cattle into forbidden territories (suraade, pl.
suraande)—notably suraade Waza and suraade Mousgoum—degenerate into conflicts
as well as arrest and sanctions by the local authorities. Various attempts to apply rigorous, uniform, and centralist State law in resolving these conflicts are being undermined by corrupt practices. However, the ineffectiveness of the traditional channels in resolving conflicts and the cumbersome nature of centralized conflict resolution mechanisms pave the way for individual initiatives and dissuasive collective defence.
The constraints to viable pastoralism imposed by ecological, economic, and socio- cultural conditions have made the traditional nomadic pastoralists change their herding strategies from perpetual mobility to sedentarization and modernization (Chapter 7).
The production objective of the modern pastoralists is profit making, while the traditional pastoralists aim to maintain subsistence and self-satisfaction and prestige by owning many animals. The herding activities of the modern pastoralists are different from the traditional pastoralists in terms of the technology used and the organization.
The pastoral production techniques used by the traditional pastoralists have been observed to change from perpetual mobility, herd splitting, open pasturing, and watering of cattle in herd and range management, to a more sedentary way of life, investments in water harnessing and storage, veterinary treatment, supplementary feeding of livestock, feed storage and transportation by the modern pastoralists. The modern pastoralists provide cattle and small ruminants with crop residue (millet stalks) and cotton-seed cakes and hulls as supplementary feed, while the traditional pastoralists provide shrubs and fodder from tree leaves cut during their trajectory. The modern pastoralists use wells and waterholes, water-pump machines, concrete basins, supplementary feeds, and rotational transhumance. The traditional pastoralists, however, practise in a declining manner perpetual mobility and herd splitting (lucci), in order to rationally exploit different ecological niches by regularly monitoring pasture quality through milk yields, livestock faeces, calving rate, and morbidity. A comparative view of the techniques also proved that differences occur as the traditional nomadic pastoralists trek longer distances than modern sedentary agro-pastoralists in search of water and forage for their livestock during the peak dry season. Discussions on these techniques brought out the spatial and technological gaps between the various systems of herding. At the technological level, pastoral resource use and management show the greatest disparity between these two systems during the dry season when water and pastures are most scarce. During the wet season the gap narrows because water and pastures become naturally available in abundance, bringing both systems almost to the same spatial and technological levels. In spite of this, the pastoralists remain different in terms of organization, production objectives, lifestyles, and livelihood. In terms of hierarchical organization, the traditional set-up is less complex, with the lamido (Woila’en), ardo (Arab Shoa), or katchella (Uuda’en) heading his group. Conversely, with the modern pastoralists, the lamido is assisted by the sarkinsanou (cattle overseer), the djaoro (head of a canton/quarter), and the lawane (group leader).
The theoretical and policy implications of the ecological, economic, and socio- cultural limitations to the perpetual mobility of pastoralists in a non-equilibrium landscape have been assessed in Chapter 8. The direct theoretical implication is that the purported perpetual mobility and flexibility of Sahelian pastoralists in a non-equilibrium landscape has an end and that pastoralism could still attain ecological sustainability and viability through feed supplementation for livestock (modernization). The policy implications of the findings of this study fall within the framework of range, water, and disease management for the ecological aspects; access to markets and diversification of
livelihoods within the pastoral economy for the economic aspects; and conflict mitigation and reforms in the socio-political organization of the pastoral sector for the socio-cultural aspects.
As regards the perspectives of traditional pastoralism in the region of study, the tendency towards sedentarization and pastoral modernization is on the increase. Herders delay the departure for transhumance by using supplementary feed and alternative watering to maintain their livestock. The herders reduce the intensity of the use of bush fires to maintain biomass that can be accessed by their livestock during the difficult part of the dry season. However, in spite the fact that traditional pastoralism is fast declining owing to the constraints mentioned above, it is still likely to support livelihoods for some time to come.
