Camel and Small Ruminant Based Pastoralism in Ethiopia: Recent Trends and Future Prospects

Abstract

In Ethiopia, camel and shoat production are common pastoralism practices in three major pastoralist regions of Afar, Somali, and Borena. This review was aimed to indicate the recent trend and future prospect of camel and small ruminant production and the possible modifiers and the pros and cons of the practices in the pastoral area of Ethiopia. Data were organized and estimated from different researches conducted in each year. Data were organized in terms of the number of camel and shoat per household each year (2010-2020) and analyzed using trend and forecasting analysis model by SPSS software. There is an increment camel Tropical Livestock Unit (TLU) per household from 2.78, 13 and 9 to 37, 28, 28 between the year 2010-+2020 in Borena, Afar and Somali respectively and will increase to 45, 45, 35 by 2030 respectively. In the whole pastoralist regions, the number of camel TLU per household increases from 2.8 to 31 between the year, 2010-2020 and will increase to 50 TLU per household by 2030, while the number of goat and sheep increase from 1.4 and 0.91 TLU per household to 2.45 and 2.46 respectively between the year 2010-2020 and the predicted model indicate increase to 2 and 3.4 TLU per household by 2030. Climate change or drought and adaptation responses are the major drivers. Climate change coping and livelihood income improvements are the pros of the trend, while the reduction of cattle population and impact on the conservation of valuable indigenous cattle are the cons of the practices.

A shift from cattle to camel and goat farming can sustain milk production with lower inputs and emissions in north sub-Saharan Africa’s drylands

“…Additionally, there are economic advantages from multispecies pastoralism because income diversification allows herders to better cope with economic, political and ecological instabilities. In some case studies, for example, it was shown that many households in the three most important Ethiopian pastoralist communities (the Afar in the northeast, the Borana in the south and the Somali in the east and southeast) have already diversified their income sources from livestock, to the extent that there are differences in household income depending on the extent of their engagement in multispecies herding 38,74 . Marketing and customer preferences for different goat and camel products vary greatly from one region to another, between rural and urban communities with different socioeconomic standards, and between different ethnic groups, and are changing over time.…”

“…There have been multiple reports documenting where pastoralist communities in drylands of NSSA (for example, Wodaâbe in Niger, Massaï in Kenya, Borana in Ethiopia, Nuer in South Sudan, and Fulani in West Africa) have adjusted their livestock composition in response to environmental extremes and changing ecological conditions, mostly by shifts from cattle to small ruminants (mainly goat) and/or camels [31][32][33][34] . Browsers (that is, camels and goats) in some pastoralist communities are preferred over grazers (that is, cattle) due to their greater climate resilience, resulting from their higher tolerance to drought and feed scarcity, as well as their capacity to produce milk and meat in all seasons 33,[35][36][37][38] . The shifting preference for browsers (that is, favouring camels and goats over cattle) due to recent climate variability/change, and associated feed and water shortage was confirmed by over 71.5% of the interviewed households from a survey of the Borana community from Isiolo County, northern Kenya 39 .…”