A central proposition in studies of pastoralism is that pastoral systems have been successful through time because they have been able to adjust both the animal and human populations that they contain against the resources available. The mechanisms involved in this adjustment have varied: in eastern Africa military expansion has historically been important, but outright population crashes have also been documented. In western Africa and in the Middle East pastoralism is more closely integrated with sedentary agriculture and an urban-based trading economy. Barth’s classic study of the Basseri, for instance, shows how Basseri pastoralism sheds off both winners and losers to the encompassing society. One way of characterising contemporary pastoral systems is that they have lost this property, which has been central to the survival of pastoralism at the systemic level.

This view to a large extent depends on treating pastoralism as a clearly bounded system, where it was clear who belonged inside and outside the system. Up to the great Sahelian drought of 1973/74 the pastoral communities in eastern Africa were more or less left to their own devices. Since then the pastoral communities have been increasingly drawn into the orbit of the nation-states in the region, for better or for worse. Relations with the surrounding nation-states have not always been benign, but there have been benefits (often short-term, such a famine relief) as well as long-term costs. As the pastoral systems are opened up it has become increasingly difficult to determine who the pastoralists are. The classic definitions that pastoralists are those who derive 50% or 80% or all their income from animal production no longer seem to be very useful. All kinds of combinations, depending on the opportunities that have presented themselves in the rapidly changing contexts of pastoralism can now be found in the areas that used to contain autonomous pastoral production systems.

Perhaps the ‘pure pastoralist’ has never existed; – people living in the dry lowlands of eastern Africa have always have had to make use of whatever opportunities they can find. Detailed reading of the ethnography often reveals a far greater range and diversity of economic activity than what we initially assume. This is still these case, but perhaps now even more so. Raising livestock is becoming increasingly difficult and actually depending on livestock production for a living is a less and less realistic livelihood strategy. Livestock production is now but one of the many things that go on in the drylands and pastoralism as a way of life is quickly disappearing. If people can make a better, more secure, more stable, more predictable living from doing these other things, perhaps we should not even regret this change.

The problem is of course that people very often are not better off! It is possible to argue for the intrinsic value of pastoralism in terms of it being the only sensible way of exploiting the resources across vast tracts of land, in terms of it being a way of life that is fulfilling to many people. Pastoralism in these terms depends on a number of preconditions that have disappeared, or are in the process of disappearing, and it is now highly unlikely that they ever will be restored. The situation can very well be summed up, as Stephen Sandford does, as ‘too many people, too few cows’.

The pastoral way of life will probably never be fully restored, but the drylands can perhaps still offer a source of livelihood for a comparatively large number of people. It has always been difficult to determine exactly how many people can be accommodated, particularly if it is true that the pastoral systems can no longer shed off the excess. Arguments about the intrinsic value of pastoralism has led to policies attempting to reinsert ‘failed’ pastoralists back into the system (through restocking schemes etc), but these solutions have been short-term, at best. If pastoralism is to survive as an economically sensible and culturally valuable way of life, it can only do so by limiting the number of people who make a living from pastoral livestock production. That means that alternatives must be found for the population that in these terms becomes an excess population. The notion that we can best help pastoralism survive by concentrating on policy alternatives outside pastoralism, policies that will siphon people away from pastoralism is counterintuitive and difficult. But it seems to be the only way. The policy options of expanding opportunities and maximising social and economic mobility (with long-term investments in education in particular), as outlined by Devereaux and Scoones, should be fully supported. This is not a policy prescription for pastoral development as such, but for development in the drylands and the people who live in the drylands. Perhaps this shift in perspective is required.

Johan Helland
Senior Researcher, Chr. Michelsen Institute