7.1.1 Issues in pastoral development
7.1.2 A development philosophy appropriate for the Boran
7.1.3 Review of pastoral systems dynamics and past interventions
This chapter unites concepts from previous chapters with practical ideas for development intervention among the Borana pastoralists. The practical ideas are based on information generated from development experiences as well as technology-based research. This synthesis is the critical contribution of this systems study to the pastoral development literature. A new development approach is forwarded that outlines intervention opportunities that change in relation to short-term cycles and long-term trends that are produced by population dynamics of cattle and people. The synthesis is proceeded by: (1) brief review of the debate regarding the effectiveness of pastoral development strategies in Africa; (2) a statement of development objectives appropriate to the Borana situation; and (3) a description of recent and anticipated changes in the Borana system. The structure of this chapter differs from others in that studies are reported as units in full (i.e. including methods, results and discussion) as they pertain to a hierarchy of intervention concepts.
Sandford (1983a: pp 11-19) interpreted what he felt was the "mainstream view" of pastoralism and rangeland dynamics commonly held by researchers, policy makers and developers. One cornerstone of this view is that traditional pastoral strategies for livestock production and land use are inappropriate in relation to promoting commercialisation and change. In addition, pastoral livestock are thought to pose a great threat in degrading rangeland environments because of the apparent reluctance of pastoralists to market animals and destock. This situation is exacerbated by veterinary campaigns and water developments that serve to increase livestock population in the absence of increased offtake
Despite the prevalence of this view, Sandford (1983a) noted that it is supported by flimsy evidence. Ellis and Swift (1988: p 451) stated that perceptions of pastoral systems emphasise negative features such as low productivity, overstocking, range degradation and drought impacts. They also remarked that after years of apparently ineffective interventions in pastoral systems, African governments, donors and research organizations appear to be giving up any hope that they can relieve these problems. Jahnke (1982: pp 102-103) thus concluded that the scope for pastoral development is extremely limited. In his review he noted the relatively high efficiency of traditional pastoralism in extracting livelihood from marginal environments and advocated the priority need for human rather than livestock development so as to facilitate emigration of excess pastoralists to gainfull employment outside of pastoral systems. Otherwise, development, he felt, must take on a defensive stance by reducing effects of drought and overgrazing and by improving the pastoral subsistence base through introduction of grain. In effect, Jahnke (1982: p 103) noted that pastoralists are relegated to the "waiting room" of development, with policy makers only able to implement relief and rehabilitation measures aimed at mitigating the effect catastrophes.
One interpretation of the above synopsis is that pastoralists and pastoral systems are relatively static in terms of the perserverance of traditional norms and modes of production. Experiences cited throughout this volume, however, attest to significant changes in the pastoral lifestyles under pressure on the Borana Plateau and elsewhere. Unfortunately, most of these changes have apparently been negative (in terms of human welfare). Human population growth, drought, inappropriate water development, land appropriation, pert-urban influences and even livestock commercialization have reportedly contributed to an increased pauperization, wealth stratification and the cultural alienation of pastoralists (Swift, 1977; Evangelou, 1984; Salih, 1985; Moris, 1988).
Perhaps the best documented example of pastoral change over time is provided by Kenya's Maasailand (Evangelou, 1984; Solomon Bekure et al, 1991). Ensconced within one of sub-Saharan Africa's healthiest economies, with a well-documented increase in commercial livestock activity, it is still difficult to ascertain whether the Maasai are "better off" today than several generations ago. It is thus apparent that while the scope for internal change, primary driven by human population growth, is significant in pastoral systems the ability of African societies at large to facilitate absorption of pastoralists and buffer pastoral systems from destructive effect of perturbations remains low.
Central to pastoral development, yet often ignored, is the problem of modernising subsistence societies in general. Smooth and yet rapid transitions are probably unprecedented. The complex social, cultural and productive features of pastoral systems adapted to risky rangeland environments are well documented (Jahnke, 1982: pp 74-77). But these are commonly inimical to those features required for commercial transformation (Behnke, 1983; 1984; 1987; Coppock et al, 1985). One key difference is population density; while ratios of people to head of livestock in commercial beef systems may be on the order of 1:50, most African pastoral systems have a ratio of 1:5 or less (Coppock et al, 1985). Pastoral systems are densely populated with people, and a large segment of the population would have to be removed, for example, for commercial ranching to be successful.
It is instructive to remember that range development in the Western world was achieved largely through warfare. Indigenous subsistence peoples were defeated and replaced by colonisers having radically different production rationales and resources. The social cost of "development" to these indigenous peoples has been veritable extinction. Western models of change are thus an inappropriate ideal for the transformation of traditional African pastoralism (Sandford, 1983a: p 6). Even if only viewed on moral grounds, contemporary development of African pastoralism faces the challenge of facilitating gradual economic transformation within the context of conserving valued aspects of pastoral cultures. It is apparent, however, that in many cases little sustainable facilitation really comes by as a result of pastoral development projects and pastoralists are therefore left to their own meager devices to cope with change (Boserup, 1965: Evangelou 1984; Solomon Bekure et al, 1991).
This lack of facilitation of change is not unique to pastoral systems, as there are few concrete examples of successful livestock commercialization elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Jahnke (1982: pp 164-171) pointed to smallholder dairy development in the Kenyan highlands as one of the only well-documented success stories and he detailed the complex history of political and economic preconditions, both on national and local levels, that led to the impact there. This is instructive in that it illuminates the fact that preconditions exist for technological impact and economic development. For the Kenyan highlands, these social and economic preconditions were necessary for impact even when market access was good, ratios of labour to land were high and forage and water resources were abundant. This illustrates another problem related to interpreting development impact: successful livestock development is typically equated with a higher level of intensification (i.e. stall-feeding and other aspects of intensive management).
It will be argued here that increases in the number of animals in low-input systems is another form of development. This is especially true in situations where low-input production values dominate, as is especially the case for pastoral situations where intensification is inappropriate because risks of losing hard-won production improvements can be very high. Thus the objectives and measures of development impact must be redefined for pastoral systems. Finally, pastoral development projects so far have been essentially "experiments" on societies, with careful articulation of goals and monitoring of impact to test hypotheses and assumptions that underly expectations of impact and change rarely taking place (Helland, 1980a). So it is not surprising that perceptions of causes and effects of pastoral development tactics remain unclear. And the main value of long-term integrative studies such as this is to provide a framework for better understanding cause and effect in complex systems.
In some important respects the Borana pastoral system is unusual and some of the possibilities for development intervention are directly linked to these characteristics. As reviewed in Chapter 2: Introduction to the Borana Plateau: Natural resources and pastoral society, the relatively predictable rainfall and labour coordination required to operate the deep wells have encouraged a somewhat stable and territorial subdivision of grazing and water resources, this in turn is supported by a sophisticated tradition of legal and social values. Tapping into this network and using development tactics that complement and facilitate traditional resource-use strategies would be the key to success in many development programmes. Because of the current situation of overcrowding and instability (see Chapter 6: Effects of drought and traditional tactics for drought mitigation), the upcoming decade may offer the best opportunities for constructive development interaction. This is because the society at large perceives a need for change as a result of population pressure (Coppock, 1992b).
Jahnke (1982: p 101) noted that an appropriate end point of pastoral development may be seen as a situation in which "...the pastoralists manage their own resources at a higher level of productivity and in accordance with ecological principles of sustained yield, while basically maintaining their characteristic life style." It is agreed that this is a desired goal of the Boran. Development should be viewed, however, more as an evolving process rather than as an end point, but with some framework for evaluation. The end point of Jahnke (1982) could be amended to include that the Boran should be better fed, clothed and housed as culturally appropriate, gain more reliable access to health care, be subjected to less drudgery in terms of labour, have more options to help them manage the risk to their capital assets (livestock) and enable them to make lifestyle choices (pastoralism or not). This broader definition of the end point is consistent with both human and livestock development, since livestock represent the source of capital with which living standards can be improved. More importantly, with this approach livestock development is not narrowly viewed as merely increased animal offtake, a reduced calving interval or other technical aspect of livestock production while changes in human welfare could be monitored and progress towards "development" be periodically evaluated.
The ability to attain this ideal end point is constrained by internal and external factors as well as their interactions, as will be shown in this chapter. Household-intervention concepts have been tailored for the Boran in recognition of the following priorities: (1) that there is an increasingly acute need for more human food in the system in all types of rainfall years; (2) that there is a need to stabilise the production system in relations to drought; (3) that opportunities to improve aspects of livestock production that are already intensive and have a lower risk; (4) that opportunities exist for more efficient use of forage, water and labour; (5) that there is a chance to facilitate using livestock assets for risk mitigation and community development projects; (7) that the opportunity exists for promoting appropriate levels of livestock turnover and monetisation, in the society; and (8) that it is possible to nurture and complement traditional aspects of social organization so as to facilitate opportunism, help enforce appropriate use and maintenance of land and water resources and protect the economic rights and roles of women.
Implicit in this development strategy is the promotion of system sustainability. Sustainability, however, is a complex concept subjected to many interpretations. Sustainability may be described as a stable or upward trend in a key resource over the long term. Disciplinarians may view soil, plants or livestock performance as key indicators of sustainability while systems scientists see sustainability more as a composite attribute that integrates several variables. For example, Flora (1992) considers a system sustainable when the positive attributes of various agricultural, ecological and social variables are concurrently optimised.
Material reviewed in Chapter 3: Vegetation dynamics and resource use and Chapter 5: Livestock husbandry and production, suggests that the central Borana Plateau has endured a large degree of livestock-induced bush encroachment and erosion. Livestock has also been reportedly lost to tick infestation. If sustainability were defined as maintenance of resources in support of livestock production, it would be tempting to speculate that the Borana system is in a downward trend, although much of the lost land could be recoverable (see Section 7.3.1.4: Site reclamation). Despite this circumstantial evidence, documenting further change in soil and plant resources that could affect sustainability of the system would be very difficult. In part this is due to the dynamic nature of grazing pressure and plant community response (see Section 7.2: A theory of local system dynamics).
Since the dominant problem in the system today is food and economic security for people, a simpler and more direct measure of system sustainability could involve per capita production of milk and animals on an annual basis. The milk would be a measure of food security while animal numbers measure economic growth in the durable assets. These sustainability indices are thus influenced by human population as well as livestock output. For example, increased animal production, or increased human emigration, would increase either index of sustainability. It is note worthy that per capita cash income is not considered as a viable measure of sustainability here. Increasing incomes mean little if markets are unable to meet demands for consumer goods. And markets can be unreliable as a result of transport and infrastructural constraints; such problems have recently driven up grain prices and have put human lives in jeopardy (see Section 6.3.3: Drought effects in 1990-91). It is argued that using human and livestock-based indicators simplifies interpretation of the acute nature of system sustainability; this is most effectively illustrated using empirical population and production models (see Section 7.2: A theory of local system dynamics).
As in many African range development projects, the first priorities in the southern rangelands were construction of ponds starting in 1965 to allow pastoral herds to expand into underutilised savannah to the north (i.e. areas not served by wells), improvement of infrastructure (roads, and livestock markets) starting in 1974 and implementation of veterinary campaigns in 1974 (see Section 1.4.2: History of lowlands development and the TLDP). The overall philosophy was that these improvements would lead to increased cattle offtake, with a strong emphasis on increasing live animal exports. There has not, however, been any evidence that this strategy was successful. The consensus among Ethiopian range professionals has been that the interventions have merely permitted a larger cattle herd now to roam the southern rangelands, placing the environment at greater risk of degradation (see Section 1.4.4: Has national range development been successful?).
One irony, then, is that in the eyes of local leaders, the infrastructural improvements have had a wide array of positive social, economic and animal production effects (D. L. Coppock, ILCA, unpublished data; Coppock, 1992b). Thus both time frame and human population factors must be taken into account for a proper evaluation. That the Boran were very isolated from the rest of Ethiopia even as late as 1980 cannot be overemphasised. For example, an informant who purchased livestock for ILCA trials in 1981 noted that herd owners in more remote locations often could not even discriminate among various denominations of Ethiopian paper currency (D. L. Coppock, ILCA, personal observation).
The tarmac road from Addis Ababa to Moyale, completed in 1976, has led to immigration by highlanders that has contributed to the substantial growth of towns such as Yabelo, Mega and Negele (Solomon Desta, TLDP economist, personal communication). The urban-based demand for meat, milk and butter has consequently also grown in the southern rangelands, as prices have reportedly gradually increased during the 1980s (D. L. Coppock, ILCA, personal observation).
Today, local market centres such as these provide opportunities for Borana women to sell dairy products and buy grain in a vital link for food security that was not needed a generation ago (see Section 4.4.10: Dairy marketing). Far from displaying conservative attitudes, Borana leaders emphasise the critical importance of markets to their wellbeing today and in the future, and complain that market access is still insufficient. This changing attitude is related to population pressure and the evolved dependence of the Boran on nonpastoral sources of food available at favourable terms in exchange of animal products (Coppock, 1992b; see Section 4.4.4: Traditional marketing rationale).
Immigrants to the towns have introduced farming and animal draft technologies that the Boran are readily adopting, and while this may have some negative environmental possibilities, it can lead to pockets of agropastoralism that provide new options for destitute pastoralists (Section 4.4.1.1: Pastoralism and cultivation). Elders also reported that the younger generations have been definetely influenced by urban trading and thus exposed to the idea that there may be easier and more profitable means of earning a living today than raising cattle. This has raised fears among the pastoral community that serious labour shortages will occur in the future as young men drop out of the traditional system (Coppock, 1992b).
In sum, this is all interpreted to illustrate on the one hand the key role of small towns as conduits of new ideas and technologies and on the other the flexible response of Borana culture in receiving the latter. These small towns developed largely as a result of infrastructure improvements.
Although the permanent ponds to the north have led to environmental degradation (see Section 3.4.1: Ecology and land Use), they allowed hundreds of families to leave dilapidated areas in the central region and move out to the periphery to new and more productive locations (Billé and Assefa Eshete, 1983b). Although current prospects for improved productivity from livestock in the north are now declining due to population pressure [i.e. it has been recently debated whether a portion of the Borana households residing in madda such as Did Hara should be moved out of the area with government assistance (SORDU, 1991)], this intervention essential iv provided a 20-year reprieve for households that migrated to Did Hara and for those that stayed behind in places like Medecho in terms of more per capita resources that likely enhanced cattle productivity.
Similarly, although some problems continue to be reported for ephemeral ponds constructed during the 1970s and early 1980s (Irwin, 1986a; 1986b; 1986c; see Section 7.3.1.1: Water-development activities), many of them have allowed improved use of wet-season range within a number of madda (Hodgson, 1990: p 24). Thirty Borana elders all reported the positive effect of veterinary campaigns on reducing risks of cattle epidemics and they concurred that as a consequence the cattle population has indeed increased (D. L. Coppock, ILCA, unpublished data). Offtake rates have apparently not increased in line with reduced cattle morality afforded by veterinary campaigns. The critical effect of the veterinary campaigns has been to delay the onset of a higher incidence of poverty by preventing losses and providing the growing population with more animals for subsistence.
Reducing the risk of catastrophic losses of cattle to disease probably also improves planning horizons for households and sets the stage for increased commercialization in the future. Whether growth in the livestock population also facilitated growth in the human population remains unclear. Borana respondents felt that recent higher rates of growth in the human population may be due more to there being no major disease outbreaks and less to having grain in the diets, famine relief, health interventions or a social breakdown of reproductive behaviour (D. L. Coppock, ILCA, unpublished data). It is more likely that a higher human population has allowed the society to keep more cattle; this could be related to increased availability of labour for watering cattle from the deep wells (Helland, 1980b).
Borana elders were concerned in 1989 about a cattle population that was on the verge of exceeding the resource capacity of their territory which was being increasingly crowded and circumscribed by other ethnic groups; their premonition was correct and large losses of cattle were reported as a result of insufficient rainfall (see Section 6.3.3: Drought effects in 1990-91 and Section 6.4.5: Equilibrial versus non-equilibrial population dynamics). Although such phenomena reveal substantial stress in Borana society, it will be argued later in this chapter that in fact stress offers a significant opportunity for introducing technical and economic interventions that otherwise may not be easily implemented.
In sum, Borana society is rapidly changing in response to contingencies of climate, population and external influences. Interventions such as development of ponds and veterinary service have probably increased the grazing area and livestock on it. These however, extensive interventions that are appropriate to conditions where intensification is risky and difficult. Evaluating these interventions in terms of cattle productivity per head or marketed offtake is not very relevant, even though these are the indicators commonly employed (Jahnke, 1982). These extensive interventions have probably facilitated the per capita acquisition of resources and thus delayed a wider onset of poverty. Limits to the benefits of such interventions have probably been reached recently. For example, there may not be any inaccessible areas anymore where water development could release pressure. When this point has been reached the extensive approach is no longer very useful and the Boran will inevitably become poorer unless some members diversify their economic activities internally or emigrate to another area. Hence this is the time when options for intensification such as land use and/or animal production, alternative investment and improved market access become important prospects that the people would be interested in.
Material reviewed in Section 4.4.2: Economic comparisons among pastoral systems, suggests that the Borana system currently represents one stage of a continuum of change precipitated by a higher human population growth rate than that for cattle and characterised by shifts in human diets from being dominated by milk to being subsidised by grain. This in turn sets the stage for other anticipated changes in economic behaviour. Although underpinned by differences in national and local conditions, it is speculated here that the Boran are one or two generations behind Kenya's Maasai on a continuum of change (Evangelou, 1984; Solomon Bekure et al, 1991). Using Maasailand and other semi-arid systems as a model, it may be expected that Borana society will undergo a similar sequence of change in the future in terms of household and livestock diversification and agropastoralism.
The challenge for development in the southern rangelands is to anticipate both positive and negative aspects of change and facilitate the former while minimising effects of the latter. The following points are presented under the assumption that: the future climate will remain significantly unchanged; the land area for Borana cattle cannot be expanded much further; gradual liberalisation of local and national policies evident in late 1990 (Ethiopian Herald, 1990) will continue; control of epidemic diseases for livestock will be maintained; the human population would continue to grow; and prospects for widespread emigration of the Boran out of the system will remain limited in the near future.
