Livestock Systems and Rural Livelihood: From Prediction to Prevention of Food Crisis Cycles in the Sahel

1
Livestock Systems and Rural Livelihood From
Prediction to Prevention of Food Crisis Cycles in
the Sahel

• Mamadou M. Chetima
• AN SC 640, TIES Seminar
• Wednesday November 02, 2005

2
Overall Goal of PhD

• Study the dynamics of farming systems in the
  Sahel
• Appraisal of the economic importance of livestock
  systems for various social groups
• Assessment of the potential for intensification
  of livestock systems
• Identification of the factors which hinder the
  intensification of livestock systems
• Simulate various scenarios to examine the
  cost-benefit of specialization or integration of
  crop and livestock systems according to
  agro-ecologic zones
• General policy recommendation for strengthening
  rural household capacity to withstand
  environmental shocks, national and regional
  policy change

3
Todays Topics

• Explore the nature of the farming system in the
  Niger
• Examine the role of livestock system in rural
  economy
• Identify the conditions which result in food
  crisis
• Discuss existing studies relevant livestock
  systems-rural livelihood-food crisis
• Identify areas for possible contribution
• State research questions and methodology to
  pursue these questions
• Stimulate discussion on relevance and feasibility
  of the study

4
Background and Significance

• Niger statistics and map recall previous
  presentation 80 rural, 80 subsistence
  agriculture, least developed country in the
  world, experienced famine last summer where about
  3million people (1/4 of the population) were at
  risk.
• The last famine in Niger this summer, reminded us
  that
• Food crises can be predicted
• Ringing the alarm mobilizes international aid,
  but when it comes, it is often too late for many
  in need
• Food crises are not about national inventory of
  food stocks, but about non-access to food by
  individuals
• Relief efforts should be about helping farmers to
  hold on to the assets which will help them
  recover after the famine.
• Sahelian agriculture (or at least in Niger, Mali,
  Burkina, and Mauritania) is still very
  rudimentary and very much at the mercy of climate
  vagaries
• Environmental conditions (climate, pest) still
  remain a major precursors of food crisis
• National as well as regional policy responses if
  not appropriate can exacerbate the crisis
• Livestock are among the assets which are called
  upon first in time of crisis

5
Background and Significance

• My masters research showed
• Average hectare of cropland per capita has been
  about 1 from 1961 to 2002, which suggests that,
  to support the growing human population,
  agricultural production growth was mainly through
  extensification.
• Question how far could cropland be expanded
  given that agricultural land is not limitless?

6
Background and Significance

• My masters research showed
• Cereal and pulses production has been increasing
• Cereal 80-90, pulses 5-15 of total food
  calories
• Oil cops and livestock production has been
  decreasing
• Oil crop 5-15, livestock 2-5 of total food
  calories

7
Research has shown
Livestock as food and income and intensification
provide even more food and income Cattle
production enhances the likelihood of meeting the
complex objectives of farm households to produce
food and to earn income. Economic growth that
provides opportunity for the rural poor is part
of the solution to the deforestation problem,
albeit a long-term solution. intensification
to refer to the process of modifying production
practices to increase both output per animal and
output per unit of land
8
Research has shown
Intensification should account with the
objectives of both producers and policy
makers Objectives for producers include profit
making, restricting the costs of production, and
ensuring secure food supplies to their
households. Objectives for policy makers
include, in addition to greater livestock output
and less pressure to clear forests, more
livestock products for consumers of varying
incomes, more rural employment opportunities, and
less importation of farm inputs and livestock
products, improve the countrys income
distribution, and limit government spending.
9
Research has shown
Intermediate intensification may be more
preferable thank complete specialization Restrict
ing the cost of purchased input in tropical
cattle systems (rather than maximizing output per
animal) increased farm profitability. Specialized
, intensive systems despite higher predicted
productivity per unit land, may not result in
greater profit, lower production costs, or fewer
risks for individual producers, especially short
term. Empirical evidence from tropical Latin
America suggest that land-using technologies have
lower costs per unit of milk than land-saving
technologies halving the amount of land use to
produce milk with specialized dairy systems in
Costa Rica would increase production cost from 52
to 212 (4 times).
10
Research has shown
Intermediate intensification focus on efficiency
of existing resources In regions where credits
and technical assistance often are not readily
accessible, low resource producers probably can
intensify only by adopting practices requiring
little or no additional coast and few new
management skills. Prices and pricing policies
link producer to consumers. Because rural
development partly depends on matching of
alternative livestock technology with land use
potentials and land user objectives, policy
makers need to asses better the alternative
livestock technologies and land use systems.
11
Research has shown
Rational behind Livestock accumulation Livestock
accumulation at maybe not rational at the
community level but it is at the household level
in pastoral systems (i) income is directly
related to herd size (ii) wealth held in the
form of livestock offers higher return over time
than formal savings even when accounting with
periodic herd losses (iii) accumulation at the
household level is preferred to restocking
through redeploying formal savings in local
livestock markets (iv) herd size post-crisis is
an increasing function of herd size pre-crisis,
suggesting herd accumulation serves a
self-insurance function. To the extent that
collective externalities exist, this study finds
that they result from suboptimal distribution of
animals (also found by T. Lybbert) and may be
compensated for by increased labor effort.
12
Research has shown
Rational behind Livestock accumulation When
consumption comes primarily from livestock
holdings, maximizing herd size makes sense even
if it increases expected mortality. In the face
of the considerable, frequent exogenous shocks
due to rainfall and other causes (e.g., disease,
predators), self-insurance through herd
accumulation may be costly but it is the most
effective way to survive wealth shocks and to
assure future consumption.
13
Research has shown
Promote Livestock accumulation, first, then turn
possible overstocking into an advantage In the
short to medium-term, herd accumulation in such
environments should be facilitated, not hindered.
Efforts that support mobility should be designed
to reduce externalities resulting from suboptimal
spatial distribution of accumulated animals. In
the long term, a combination of formal insurance,
higher rates of return to formal savings, and the
development of livestock markets that allow
self-restocking (also found by T. Lybbert) could
reduce the economic incentive to accumulate
animals. In addition, the development of
alternative income generation strategies other
than livestock raising could offer households
currently involved in pastoral production a
greater possibility of smoothing income streams
over time.
14
Research has shown
Promote Livestock accumulation, first, then turn
possible overstocking into an advantage (from T.
Lybbert helping stimulate means for wealthier
pastoralists to diversify their asset holding may
help them while also providing investable funds
for non-pastoral activities) These longer term
efforts should build on the pastoral production
system and attempt to strengthen it rather than
displacing it.
15
Research has shown
Continued need for testing not assumption to
prevent mistakes Considering the irrationality
of accumulation of herd and the existence of
negative externalities in pastoral production as
hypothesis to be tested rather than certainties
on which policy can be based. The empirical
foundation that such research, could provide to
pastoral development program, will help ensure
that the record of failure characterizing past
efforts need not characterize the future.
16
Research has shown
Livestock role and pastoral risk
management Multiple roles livestock play in this
setting (i) a source of food (milk, meat, and
blood) (ii) a provider of services (manure,
traction, and transport) (iii) an object of
status (iv) a shore of wealth. Moreover,
livestock helps regulate Arid and Semi-Arid Land
(ASAL) rangeland ecosystems, so livestock
mortality and productivity may be endogenous to
pastoralist husbandry decisions.
17
Research has shown
Livestock role and pastoral risk management Same
environmental risks for all, larger shocks for
poorest even if covariate climatic events and
aggregate stocking rates on common property
rangelands propel livestock cycles, as long as
households differ in their ability to cope with
or migrate these risks there are likely to be
dramatic differences in the damage sustained
across pastoral households.
18
Research has shown
Livestock role and pastoral risk management Both
culturally and economically, reduced livestock
wealth means diminished status and living
standards, especially if other opportunities and
productive activities are not available. Mortalit
y, more than sales, regulates herd
stocks Livestock primary role as an assets whose
productivity affects its price. Calves mortality
is negatively correlated to weather, but not
total mortality. Climatic shock can affect
pasture quality and availability more than can be
done by overstocking. The challenge of pastoral
risk management extends far beyond responding to
climatic variation.
19
Research has shown
Livestock role and pastoral risk
management Existence of traditional social
networks used to reconstitute herd after shocks,
to generate needed labor for the required herd
mobility. Marketing and social insurance
mechanisms based on reciprocity play a limited
role in moderating wealth shocks. Rather,
biological phenomena calving and mortality- are
the primary drivers of herd dynamics among a
population that holds nearly all its wealth in
the form of livestock. Part of the mortality
experience is associated with covariate shocks,
primarily rainfall. But household-specific asset
risk dominates.
20
Research has shown
Livestock role and pastoral risk management The
existence of multiple dynamic wealth equilibria
implies an important role for policy, both in
keeping currently viable pastoralist from falling
into poverty traps and in helping extricate those
who have fallen into a low-level equilibrium
trap. Once a pastoralists herd gets too small,
the household must sedentarize, becoming ensnared
into a poverty trap from which it can be
difficult to escape.
21
Research has shown
Relying on market (intensification elsewhere) vs.
Extensification The bio-economic module provides
feedback between the economics of todays crop
choices and the biophysics that explains the
long-term changes in natural resources. Intensifi
cation is only profitable at locations where the
marginal cost of increasing productivity from
intensification is lower than the average cost of
production at the frontier. This is clearly a
challenge to technology, since yields on the
frontier are typically about one-third of the
yields from intensification, yet the
out-of-pocket costs from intensification are
often ten to fifteen times as large.
22
Research has shown
Relying on market (intensification elsewhere) vs
Extensification Farmers often-stated
preference for using home production to satisfy
subsistence indicates a certain degree of
aversion to relying on markets. This preference
can be explained by the uncertainty in cereal
prices and cash availability. Labor is a
limiting factor (increase household size?) The
short planning horizon appears to be the driving
factor in farmers decision making. Policies to
lower food prices to reduce pressure to home
produce food, or lowering input price to induce
more intensification, would be ineffective in
reducing farmers propensity to clear new land.
The short-run profitability of the new lands are
made very apparent to farmers with narrow
temporal view, and could only be overcome by very
aggressive, and unrealistic, input or food
subsidies.
23
Research has shown
Modeling farming systems As future research, it
is suggested that next generation modeling
activities include a more general set of land
clearing activities, such as over-grazing
marginal lands and deforestation associated with
firewood. The social costs would also need to
be expanded to include the negative impacts from
lower village livestock populations and reduced
land available for nomadic pastoralists who rely
on communal grazing lands during the dry season.
Considerable feedback among the three
activities is expected as they compete for a
continually shrinking supply of land.
Additional analysis could also consider how
poor weather would factor into the farmers
decision making, and if it would further
aggravate land extensification through production
risk.
24
How systems dynamics is a useful tool
Can describe the farming system Can exhibit all
relevant feedback loops Can help simulate
various scenario Can inform on the immediate as
well as the long-term outcome of each alternative
How it is perfect for this kind of work A tool
as well as a methodology to analyze complex
systems Once the model is tested and validated,
it can be used to replicate the study in similar
areas.
25
Overall model
26
Sub-model
27
(No Transcript)
28
Plan of action

• Identify leaders in the field
• Visit sites
• What data will collect
• How will collect data

29
Conclusions

• Food security is a critical issue
• Limited research leaves gaps
• Systems Dynamics as a tool
• Broader context

30
References

• Blake, R. W. and C. F. Nicholson, Eds. (2004).
  Livestock, Land Use Change, and Environmental
  Outcomes in the Developing World. Responding to
  the Livestock Revolution--the role of
  globalisation and implications for poverty
  alleviation. Nottingham, Nottingham University
  Press.
• Lybbert Travis J., C. B. Barrett, et al. (2004).
  "Stochastic wealth dynamics and risk management
  among a poor population." The Economic Journal
  114(498) 750-777.
• McPeak, J. (2005). "Individual and Collective
  Rationality in Pastoral Production Evidence From
  Northern Kenya." Human Ecology 33(2) 171 - 197.
• Nicholson, C. F., R. W. Blake, et al. (1995).
  "Livestock, Deforestation, and Policy Making
  Intensification of Cattle Production Systems in
  Central America Revisited." J. Dairy Sci. 78(3)
  719-734
• Vitale, J. D. and J. G. Lee (2005). Land
  Degradation in the Sahel An Application of
  Biophysical Modeling in the Optimal Control
  Setting. American Agricultural Economics
  Association Meeting, Providence, Rhode Island,
  Vitale and Sanders.