This sub-system concerns the sedentary livestock farmers earning their major income from livestock and giving more attention to animals than to crops. A minimum number of livestock is necessary to maintain the household economy. It is distinct from the mixed system based simultaneously on crops and animals (see mixed communal grazing system). The strategies to manage the risk and to secure subsistence and family incomes can be different, leading to the diversity of the systems : they are mainly based on the diversification of activities, flexibility and research of opportunity, accumulation of profits in livestock...

With population growth, the area under arable crops is expanding. The crops leave straw and weeds after harvest valuable by livestock and they suppose development of grazable fallow. But the crop encroachment disrupts pastoral areas, causing artificially local grazing pressure and an irregular overgrazing. Access to water can be limited by cultivation of river banks, irrigation and sometimes water diversion upstreams.

Large areas of traditional dry season pastures, on soils having the best water-holding capacity, are converted into cropland. Trees usable for browsing are cut to clear fields if they are not traditionally protected in agroforestry parks.
 

Globally, the environmental impacts of livestock are similar to those of the mobile grazing sub-system in semi-arid zones. Thus, the following matrix of environmental risks and opprortunities is common for both sub-systems.

Proceed to Matrix of Risks, Opportunities and Underlying Causes

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