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This report focusses on some new fringe activities that have developed among pastoralists such as cross-border trade and trafiicking and smuggling. It sees these activities as emerging from a changing relationship between the pastoralists, the state, and their national and transnational mobility. Although undertaken by only a handful of pastoralists, these activities have far-reaching national, regional and global impacts. 

This report is not a conventional study of pastoral socioeconomic production and reproduction systems as a whole, but instead is limited to exploring some new fringe activities with consequences for the present and future of pastoralism as a resilient and ever adaptive way of life despite the pressures and myriad of challenges it faces.

This report looks at transhumant (or nomadic) pastoralism – the movement of livestock from one place to another between wet and dry seasons – and the dynamics of conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, which have steadily increased in Nigeria in recent years. It outlines the causes of increased pastoralist-farmer tensions as well as the position of pastoralists in Nigeria. It explores the challenges to developing conflict prevention mechanisms at local and national levels, and identifies potential entry points for doing so.

Pastoral communities are facing increasing pressure on their livehoods due to depletion and degradation of their productive resources. Land tenure plays a decisive role in sustaining pastoral productive systems. However, these communities are also facing pressures on their land as a result of misconceptions about pastoralism, changing demographics, urbanisation, climate change, and environmental degradation. In addition, public policy has not always favoured the development of pastoralism. Given that pastoral communities reside in areas characterised by arid and semi-arid conditions, and where alternative uses of land such as crop farming may not be possible, this policy brief argues for the maintenance of collective land tenure as it enhances the sustainability of pastoral productive systems.

This Grant Results sheet highlights the outcomes of activities supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) with the goal of developing sustainable land management and resilient livelihoods in rangeland environments.

This book summarizes the current status of scientific and management knowledge
regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It is organized around three major themes: the first summarizes recent theoretical and conceptual advances in rangeland science and management, the second tries to alaborate on the implications of these advances for management recommendations and policy decisions, and the third theme evaluates some of the major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century.

A study report on the nature of pastoral women’s rights and the specific constraints and opportunities that they face with respect to access to land and natural resources in their everyday lives. It reviews the existing customary and statutory land rights in the villages visited, the specific opportunities and challenges that women in those villages have faced, their awareness, and the impact, of recent land reform processes. It also discusses women’s empowerment initiatives in strengthening women’s land rights, and the scope and desirability of further improvements to women’s land rights. 

This issue of Farming Matters explores the different ways pastoral societies are joining forces to challenge the policies that undermine their culture and way of life.

For millennia, pastoralist societies have managed the rangelands of the world’s most challenging environments, producing food and providing ecosystem services for millions of households.

The experiences, opinions and perspectives presented in this issue highlight the importance of pastoral societies for agroecology and the transformation of entire food systems.