7. This section describes four range enclosure movements - two in the South Darfur Province of western Sudan and the other two in the central rangelands of Somalia. While we have no assurance that the factors which encouraged enclosure in these areas will be decisive elsewhere in Africa, both theoretical analysis and historical parallels from the development of livestock keeping in industrial countries suggest that these cases are not a typical (Behnke, 1985b; Demsetz, 1967; Anderson and Hill, 1979).
South Darfur
8. In South Darfur range enclosure is taking place in two distinct but adjacent areas, and different combinations of commercial and ecological factors are responsible for promoting enclosure in these two areas (for details see Behnke, 1985a).
The urban fodder belt
9. One of the zones of enclosure consists of the rural hinterland which supplies the commercial fodder markets for Nyala, South Darfur's largest market town and the terminus of the rail line from Khartoum. The town contains numerous milk cows kept for household milk supplies, horses and donkeys used for the haulage of domestic water or commercial goods from the railhead, and a variable number of animals being held for marketing or shipment to Khartoum. Whether or not a particular farming community produces fodder for the Nyala market is determined by the sale value of the local native fodder species relative to the transport costs of getting it to town. Producers and shippers generally find it profitable to bring fodder to the town from as far away as 100 kilometers, and from greater distances in seasons or years when fodder is scarce and the price is high. The Nyala fodder belt is not, therefore, a natural ecological area, but simply a zone within which a particular kind of commercial agriculture is profitable.
10. The area around Nyala is poorly supplied with permanent water sources and can support very few cattle year-round. Because local cattle are few and a profitable fodder market is close at hand, enclosure in this area is primarily undertaken in order to produce and sell fodder rather than to provide feed for local livestock.
11. Those who enclose fields for the production of fodder range from small-scale farmers to large-scale entrepreneurs small-scale farmers usually sell through middlemen while the large entrepreneurs own their own trucks, produce, haul and market their own fodder. Most of the fodder consists of native grasses which are not cultivated but simply protected from grazing by fences.
The agro-pastoral zone
12. The natural ecology plays a much more important role in defining a second zone of range enclosure lying to the west of the Nyala fodder belt. In this case enclosure affects a region of approximately 20,000 km² lying roughly inside the Rural District Council of Idd el-Ghanam. Several different groups of nomadic graziers and semi-settled agro-pastoralists use pastures in the district. On a pattern common to most of the Sahel and Sudanic zones, the majority of the nomadic herds spend the dry months in the south and west of the district in areas of higher rainfall where dry-season water and grazing are more plentiful. As the rains progress, however, these wetter areas become uninhabitable due to flooding, mud, biting flies, tsetse and mosquitoes. The Idd el-Ghanam District, characterized by relatively high, well-drained and firm ground, is a wet-season refuge for nomadic stock fleeing from these problems. Nomadic stock are also attracted to the district in the rainy season from about June to September because it offers the highest quality pasture available in that season.
13. Left behind in the district for the remainder of the year are locally owned cattle kept by the mixed crop and livestock farmers who live in the area. Whereas nomadic cattle pull back to southern pastures and water points, many local herds try to make it through the dry season on water from handdug wells in the bottoms of the dry water courses which drain the district. This water is reasonably plentiful, but cattle need fodder as well as water if they are to survive, and herein lies a major conflict of interest between local herd operators and the nomads who seasonally use the district. Under open-range conditions, local residents are forced to permit the wet-season grazing by outsiders of pastures that their own cattle will later need to survive the dry season.
14. The district is therefore under heavy pressure from grazing stock in all seasons. Aggravated by low rainfall between 1982-84, overstocking has undermined the economic welfare of local livestock keepers who face high levels of stock loss at the end of the dry season. Their response has been to enclose a portion of their rangelands for their exclusive use. The range enclosure movement now occurring in the district is therefore based on competition between transient and permanently resident livestock keepers for control of a diminishing range resource. This pattern becomes clear if we compare the regions adjacent to the district which do not support enclosure movements. In these areas either pasture is plentiful and not worth the trouble of enclosing, or there is insufficient dry-season water to sustain large numbers of local stock and thereby to precipitate a conflict of interest between local and transient users.
15. In those communities in which the process of private enclosure is most advanced, it is the larger herd owners with the wealth and social standing to dominate local politics who have erected the largest enclosures. Smaller and less prosperous herd owners do not hold extensive grass enclosures because, at least in part, of the high cost of thorn fencing. Although family labour might be sufficient to enclose a small arable plot, large grass enclosures are commonly built by hired work parties. The cost of maintaining the enclosures is also high since the thorn fences rot after one to three years.
Central rangelands of Somalia
16. The enclosure movements described here are occurring in the vicinity of the market and administrative town of el-Buur which lies on the interior plain of central Somalia in Galgudund Region. The enclosure of grazing land is taking place both on the plain itself and on the neighbouring sand ridges which stand between el-Buur town and the coast. Livestock-keeping is dominant on the interior plateau where soils are thin and rainfall low and irregular, while mixed agro-pastoralism predominates on the coastal dune ridges. Range enclosure has a slightly different history - and slightly different causes - in each of these two ecological zones, and they will be examined separately (for details see Mascott, 1985).
The agro-pastoral zone
17. Range enclosure in the dunes area is an outgrowth of the pre-existing agro pastoral production system. This system had established the principle of private ownership over arable land and the use of thorn fencing to protect crops from livestock. It also created a group of livestock owners with an interest in keeping their herd around the farm in order to use crop residues and to simplify the problems of dividing domestic labour between the farm and the herd.
18. Changes in this form of land use were precipitated by borehole development in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this period five deep bores with diesel-powered pumps were established in the dune area, a concentration of pumped water unequalled in other parts of the central Somali rangelands. The most attractive farm sites and grazing areas were now located around these wells, and the cluster of wells was compact enough that the normal concentric zones of heavy land-use around individual wells began to overlap, forming a continuous block of densely settled and intensively used land. There was now a land shortage in the vicinity of permanent water, and it was in this area that range enclosure took place.
19. Local herders and farmers asserted that there was still in 1985 sufficient cultivable land to meet everyone's needs. The problem, they maintained, was that everyone had panicked anticipating a land shortage and enclosed huge fallow areas for grazing and future cultivation. But like a run on a bank, the panic was self-fulfilling. Those who did not take the precaution of enclosing surplus land subsequently found that they were hemmed in on all sides by other people's fences, and that it was impossible to expand their farms or find good grazing for their animals. No one planned to enclose the entire area, residents said; it just happened, the unintended result of each individual protecting his own interests.
20. Commercial herd operators and livestock traders have also been instrumental in furthering enclosure. Because they can pay for labour, these entrepreneurs have enclosed far larger areas than poorer households which were solely dependent on domestic labour or work parties to construct and maintain fences. Commercial producers also use their enclosures for intensive sheep fattening, and option not open to small-scale producers.
21. Finally, the decline of the traditional rural political system has made an important contribution to encouraging range enclosure. In the el-Buur area, the late 1960s were an unsettled period during which different local groups struggled against each other to control the land. From 1969 onwards, however, the national government outlawed the old system of clanship, raiding, and collective responsibility for homicide. By the early 1970s the disputes in the el-Burr area had been suppressed, and security had improved to the point where herders could occasionally turn their camels loose and unherded without fear of theft. Thus, the decline of the clan system and improved levels of personal security coincided in time with new initiatives to control land through private enclosure rather than collective military action.
22. In sum, it is clear that enclosure in the agro-pastoral areas has been caused by a combination of factors. Initially it was triggered by intensive water development in an area where fencing of arable land was already accepted and herders welcomed this new opportunity to keep their animals close to the farm. The initial pressures towards enclosure were then exacerbated by the self-fulfilling logic of an enclosure movement. Once the movement had gained momentum, even individuals who did not want to enclose were forced to do so in order to prevent others from expropriating all the communal land. Finally, the enclosure movement has been sustained by the growth of commercial interests and the decline of old forms of collective political organization based on the joint defense of common landed resources.
The nomadic zone
23. A combination of four factors had encouraged range enclosure in the nomadic areas of the interior plateau around el-Buur town.
(i) drought. The current enclosure movement began in 1975 at the height of the great Somali drought, the Dhaba Dhere, as a response to the exceptional scarcity of good grazing during the drought.(ii) government policy. The spread of enclosure was abetted, according to local government officials, by a national policy during the drought to promote agricultural production by clearing new farm areas. Individuals came forward saying that they wanted to farm, and were allocated land on that basis; their real intention however, was to gain control of pasture by fencing it.
(iii) commercial profitability. Not all local livestock owners - either pastoralists or townsmen with a few milch cows - have been able to obtain enclosure By eliminating the most productive areas of the open range, enclosure inevitably increases the demand for and the price of fodder offered to these people for sale, making further enclosure even more attractive.
(iv) local political factors. The pastoralists who use the el-Buur area for dry-season water are affiliated with descent groups different from the local el-Buur residents who have enclosed the area. The pastoralists come from nearby, open-range grazing areas which provide excellent wet-season pastures and numerous temporary water sources, but no permanent water. These pastoralists have instead established rights of access to water points and dry-season grazing controlled by other groups located on the periphery of their home territory. By enclosing the best grazing land, the el-Buur population has partially opted out of this system of shared access. The pastoralists still use el-Buur water, but enclosure has denied them good grazing in the vicinity of that water.
24. Thus, enclosure has been encouraged by communal rivalries based on old patterns of land holding, coupled with the weakening of the communal institutions which had previously channeled these rivalries. Whereas disputes over land would previously have involved collective group action on each side, the initiative has now passed to individuals who fence private holdings.
Summary of the causes of enclosure
25. In the preceding examples range enclosure was caused by different combinations of seven factors. These seven factors were:
(i) the growth of commercial markets for fodder(ii) the development of commercially-oriented forms of animal husbandry
(iii) drought
(iv) heavy stocking of pastures
(v) borehole development
(vi) the breakdown of traditional rural institutions which formerly managed and defenced common landed resources
(vii) government tenure policies
26. While this list is certainly not exhaustive, the factors cited above are indicative of the range of conditions which promote and sustain enclosure movements. The list suggests that, in general, individuals fence common rangeland whenever they judge enclosure to be both practical and profitable. The role of profitability is immediately clear with respect to commercial fodder and livestock production, points (i) and (ii) above. As the value of rangeland production goes up, there is a corresponding tendency by individuals to attempt to acquire private control over the sources of that production.
27. However, land may also acquire a scarcity value which is independent of, or even inversely correlated with, the value of its current output. Borehole development, overstocking, and drought (points iii. - v.) may destroy the productivity of rangelands, but by reducing the total supply of available fodder they increase the value of any good grazing which may remain. Factors which lead to the degradation of rangeland may, therefore, intensify the struggle by individuals to control that range. Alternatively, borehole development may create an artificial land scarcity by making the surrounding area particularly valuable. In this case the pressure for enclosure will be similar to that which occurs in a severe drought or under conditions of continuous overstocking, but it will occur in a limited geographical area.
28. Whether or not individuals respond to commercial incentives or scarcity by fencing the range also depends on the liabilities resulting from this course of action, represented in the preceding list by points (vi) and (vii). National policies and local political conditions can make it either more or less difficult for individuals or groups to defy the customary understandings which govern the ownership of scarce resources, or to violate existing land laws. At a more prosaic level, the "cost" of fencing for individuals may be affected by government policies to subsidize fencing or the purchase of fencing materials, for example, or to tax enclosures.
29. In sum, the seven causal factors underlying range enclosure, described above, can be reduced to three principles:
(i) increases in the commercial value of range or livestock production;
(ii) a decline in the supply and a corresponding increase in the scarity value of grazing land;
(iii) decreases in the costs of enclosure costs in this case including social and political as well as monetary considerations.
