Section Two. Who are the poor and what is the scale of their impact on the environment?

Poverty is still primarily a rural phenomenon. In the poorest countries, which hold over one billion poor, at least 90 per cent of the poor are found in rural areas (Bird, 1999).

One of the characteristics of the poor is a lack of assets (Rakodi, 1998). Livestock however are often one of the few assets owned by the poor, not only in pastoral areas but also throughout agricultural systems and probably in urban areas as well. For this reason livestock are thought to play an important role in the livelihoods of the poor in all agro-ecological zones. An recent study by LID (1999) estimated that livestock contribute to the livelihoods of at least 70 per cent of the world's rural poor, and there is mounting evidence to suggest that the poor commonly rely on livestock for a relatively greater proportion of their income than wealthier households (Delgado et al, 1999; Kurosaki, 1995).

2.1 Livestock systems of the poor

In order to assess the impact of rising demand, and increased cropping, on the poor we need to focus our attention on poor livestock producers. The poor consume very little livestock products, and therefore are unlikely to benefit as consumers from changes in production, nor are they likely to be employed in any significant way on livestock associated industries, which tend to be capital as opposed to labour intensive. The impacts of the driving forces on the poor and the environment are therefore most likely to arise through direct changes to the production activities of poor livestock keepers.

The Livestock and Environment Report categorises livestock systems according to their degree of intensification, specialisation and organisation (i.e. grazing, mixed farming and industrial systems). This categorisation is appropriate for looking at physical impacts on the environment. However, to look at the impacts of the driving forces, production dynamics and policies on poor people interacting with the environment then we need to further specify these categories so that we can focus our attention on the systems that are operated by the poor.

We have identified nine types of livestock rearing systems that are operated by the poor (Table 1). We have not set out to complete a full taxonomy of livestock systems of the poor, and we acknowledge that our list will be incomplete. As with any such typology, Table 1 is a simplification and systems are not mutually exclusive. The extent to which a poor household could be ascribed to one or another category may change on a daily, seasonal or opportunistic basis.

In keeping with the categories adopted by the Livestock and Environment Study, we have classified these systems according the extent to which animals (a) graze non-arable land, (b) are integrated into mixed farming systems, or (c) are managed as 'open' systems where feeds are transported to permanently confined animals. Further distinctions are made according to (a) the degree of mobility exhibited by producers and (b) whether farmers have land (either owned, rented or sharecropped) or are landless.

The livestock systems of the poor have two key common characteristics that are important to our understanding of how the poor interact with the environment, and how the poor are likely to respond to the driving forces. All systems of the poor tend to be characterised by a high dependence on (a) common property feed resources and (b) family labour.

(a) Common property feed resources

Many of the livestock systems of the poor rely disproportionately on common property resources as a source of feed and water for their animals (Ostrom, 1990; Agrawal, 1994, Jodha, 1995). The dependence on common property resources allows poor families with few assets to convert a public good (plant biomass and water) into more valuable private goods (meat, milk, manure, draught power) from which they can derive a livelihood. Common-property feeds are an essential resource for landless livestock keepers, in particular women livestock keepers, who are more likely to be prevented from owning land due to a variety of legal, social and administrative reasons (UNDP, 1997).

(b) Labour

High inputs of labour are often a characteristic of the livestock keeping systems of the poor (Behnke, 1987; Sikana et al., 1993). Pasha (1991) commenting on mixed systems in India, writes "In a dry region, the resource- poor farmers possess their own labour as the only abundant factor which is free to them, and they try to use it to its maximum for survival and thus concentrate on animal husbandry (which is labour intensive) along with crop production". In societies that place sanctions on the economic activities of women, livestock that are reared close at home, or whose products can be processed in the house, are often one of the few means by which women can engage in economic activities (Waters-Bayer & Bayer, 1992; Singh, 1994; Swift & Umar, 1991; Paul & Saadullah, 1991; Curry, 1996; Joekes & Pointing, 1991; Bruggeman, 1994; Dieckman, 1994).

2.2 Relative significance of these systems to the environmental hotspots

The Livestock and Environment Study acknowledges that certain environmental problems have been specifically associated with the unprecedented rate of growth in the livestock industry in developing countries. Considerable debate in the Livestock and Environment Electronic Conference (co-ordinated by Bob Hart and Victor Mares) considered whether this was a just assertion or actually an extrapolation of developed country scenarios to developing country situations. Whilst this debate remains unresolved due to the lack of conclusive evidence this should not deviate our attention from the fact that livestock production systems are highly dynamic and that small-scale environmentally threatening situations can quickly escalate. The Livestock and Environment Study rightly therefore anticipates magnified impact and draws attention to circumstances where irreversible environmental damage is actually or could potentially occur.

Livestock-associated hotspots of environmental damage are described within the three major systems found in developing countries; grazing, mixed and industrial. Overgrazing and land degradation hotspots occur in the Sahel and in India, deforestation in the Amazon basin, involution ("squeezing-out of livestock) of mixed farming systems in east and central African highlands and the Himalayas and nutrient surpluses occur in industrial livestock systems in China and South East Asia. Various cross-cutting issues were also identified, including the loss of wildlife due to habitat competition with livestock (and livestock keepers), production of greenhouse gases (particularly methane from ruminants), loss of domestic and wild plant biodiversity, challenges to public health due to proliferation of unregulated, intensive animal production and informal marketing systems, build-up of agrochemical residues (including veterinary drugs) in animal products and the wider environment and the environmental challenges resulting from concentrate feed production.

We hypothesise that the relative contribution of the systems operated by the poor to these environmental hotspots are as follows (these arguments are summarised in Figure 2):

• Overgrazing and land degradation in arid and semi-arid areas is a consequence of increasingly localised grazing pressure due to an expansion of cropping, rising livestock numbers and, perhaps more importantly, decreased mobility of pastoral herds (Lane, 1990; Uabi, 1993; Diop et al, 1998). Livestock ownership within pastoral communities is highly skewed towards wealthier members of the community. In Kenya for example the poorest one third of the community were found to own just 5% of the herd (Grandin, 1983) It is likely that livestock that are owned or managed by poor households^[4] represent the minority of animals on the range (Scoones, 1995, Kuzner, 1991; Cousins, 19998; Herren, 1992). We therefore hypothesise that the poor contribute marginally less to overgrazing and land degradation than do wealthier producers. However, the effects of increased grazing competition, which results in lower productivity per head, are likely to be felt most by poorer pastoralists as they have fewer animals from which they can survive.^[5]

• Deforestation through livestock is largely associated with government policy that subsidised large-scale agricultural commercial production on former forestland. The extent to which forest clearance has been the result of activities by the poor "squatter" operating slash-and-burn systems has yet to be put into a global perspective. In Latin America, deforestation has been largely attributed to wealthier large-scale landowners, whilst poorer livestock producers have often been victims to low labour-demanding ranching enterprises which have evicted poorer squatters as superfluous to need. Deforestation may in fact lead to further environmental concern if displaced families move to marginal land on hillsides (Sunderlin & Rodríguez, 1996).

• Wildlife and livestock interactions are competitive and predative where livestock populations on rangeland are high either through increases in livestock numbers or, more likely, through concentrations of stock with constrained grazing ranges due to privatisation of nationalisation (for conservation) of land. As mentioned above, the greatest source of this competition is likely to arise from the livestock of the wealthy (as they own the majority of animals on the rangeland). However, for the increasingly marginalised poor livestock owner, game poaching represents a valuable alternative livelihood opportunity, and it is possible that poorer families are contributing more to poaching problems than wealthier livestock owners.

• Involution - upsetting the balance between crops and livestock. Involution - the loss of animals from arable systems^[6] - is associated with declining farm sizes and might therefore be expected to occur first with poorer families who own or rent very small farms. However, we argue that a reduction in livestock numbers is most likely to occur on first wealthier farms which, because of their larger herd/flock sizes, have a lower ratio of crop residues:livestock unit than poorer farms, and therefore are least able to support their livestock through existing resources. Contrary to the general hypothesis of involution set out in the Livestock and Environment Study, we contend that the poor may actually be able to retain their livestock in intensifying systems (subject to maintenance of access rights to common property resources), and that the loss (but not total removal) of livestock is more likely to occur on wealthier farms. In Bangladesh, for example, a study by the UNDP found that the number of bovine animals reared on large (3 ha and above) and medium farms (1 - 3 ha) declined by 24% and 9.3% respectively between 1977 and 1984, whereas bovine animals increased by 56% on small farms (0.2 to 1 ha). (UNDP, 1989)

• Soil and water pollution because of excess nutrients. The industrialisation of livestock production is a capital-intensive process that is associated with wealthy farmers and businesses. The poor may however also engage in small-scale intensive production by using family labour to harvest and glean feeds from common property forage sources such as roadside or cropland verges to support small numbers of permanently housed animals. Such landless systems of the poor can be numerous and widely dispersed making it difficult for local authorities to effectively regulate their activities. However, unlike the large rearing units which may have significant costs associated with the safe disposal of animal wastes, to the small-scale producer excreta is a valuable product that can be sold as fuel, fertiliser or feed, and therefore rarely left to drain into local watercourses or leach into soils. Complex market-linkages can develop between manure-producers and users. For example, urban dairies may exchange manure for vegetable waste (as feed) with peri-urban horticulturists (Van Der Pyl, 1997) and manure from backyard fattening units may be used in urban aquaculture. Effluent from livestock product processing (eg tanneries, slaughterhouses and dairies) presents a major environmental hazard. However, except for dairy processing, these tend not to be activities managed by the poor. All products from traditional milk processing activities in poor households are consumed within the household and so result in insignificant waste.

• Gaseous emission from livestock is an area of concern in terms of the poor livestock keeper since methane emission per unit of product is highest when feed quality and animal productivity is low. By operating low output ruminant production systems which hinge upon the use of low quality plant biomass (grasses and cereal crop residues) poor producers are contributing to global warming. Whilst poor households may be effective managers of manure (faeces), urine (a source of ammonia) is technically much more difficult to contain. If the hypothesis set out above (concerning the poor keeping a more prominent proportion of livestock as systems intensify) holds true, then the prospects for livestock owned by these sectors of society increasing their contribution to gas emissions looks likely. Unless the poor switch to keeping pigs and poultry.

• Reduction of biodiversity in rangeland and forest flora has been demonstrably attributed to grazing by livestock (eg Hiernaux, 1995). However, we argue that the livestock of the poor make a relatively smaller contribution to this impact (see above). Of equally serious concern is the depletion in diversity amongst plants and animals associated with modern agriculture (Carson, 1962). For example, 26% of pig and 53% of poultry breeds are currently considered "at risk" of extinction (FAO, 1995). The narrowing of genetic base towards more productive crops and livestock (accelerated by recent advances in genetic engineering) hinges upon the use of yield enhancing and sanitary inputs whose use also has serious environmentally- threatening implications. Poor farmers lack capital to invest in agrochemical and veterinary drugs and have therefore tended to retain traditional breeds of animals which are multi-purpose and less vulnerable to drought or disease (Intermediate Technology, 1996; Perrings, 1998).

• Agrochemical use in some, but not all, developing countries shows an alarming upward trend (FAO, 1995). However, their use by the poor is mainly limited by the lack of capital to buy such products or the reduced need for agrochemical inputs where they rear disease-tolerant, varieties or breeds of crops and livestock. Despite this rising agrochemical use will impact upon the poor livestock keeper who depend upon feeding crop by-products obtained from farms where herbicides and pesticides are used or feeding of vehicle exhaust-contaminated roadside grasses in mixed and industrial systems. In many developing countries capacity does not exist to screen livestock products entering the food chain for herbicide, pesticide and heavy metal residue. Meat, blood products, dairy products and eggs may thus become more detrimental to human health as systems intensify.

• Public health. Where the poor operate backyard animal production units or function as agents in the informal marketing of perishable livestock products there is concern that the unregulated hygiene practices of producers/marketers may present a greater challenge to food safety standards. The rise in backyard livestock numbers is likely to overwhelm already under-resourced animal health delivery systems inspiring fears of greater incidence of zoonotic disease. In the case of food hygiene, since the poor market locally, and often directly to consumers, a lowering of food quality standards would result in consumer discrimination against certain vendors. In this way food quality standards may be (locally) self-regulating. By contrast, issues relating to the problem of controlling zoonotic disease does require more urgent attention national policy makers and animal health implementation agencies.

• Concentrate feed use by the poor is extremely limited in the sense that the poor cannot afford to purchase large quantities of compounded feed. Poor livestock producers are more likely to use small amounts of food-processing by-products such as cereal bran and oilseed meal particularly for non-ruminants. Since these are derived as a by-product from food crops produced locally and that no extra land is required to grow grain their use poses no additional threat to the environment.

Figure Impact of livestock systems of the poor on environmental hotspots

The discussion above highlights the fact that the livestock production systems of the poor contribute in different ways to the environmental impacts in the hotspot areas (summarised in Table 2). The degree to which livestock owned by a community has neutral, negative or positive impacts the environment is also shifting, reflecting the highly dynamic nature livestock systems of the poor. It is therefore important that potential impacts on the environment be assessed in this context of change. In the next section we examine how the systems of the poor may be transforming in response to the driving forces that are underpinning the evolution of livestock production systems. We then hypothesise how these changes may be creating new environmental hotspots.