Is Poverty Driving Borana Herders in Southern Ethiopia to Crop Cultivation?

Tache, Boku; Oba, Gufu

doi:10.1007/s10745-010-9349-8

Cited by 51 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Other studies such as [14,[58][59][60] suggest that crop diversification can boost total household income (Fig. 5a), and our data support that hypothesis.…”

Section: Incomesupporting

confidence: 90%

Households and food security: lessons from food secure households in East Africa

et al. 2015

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Background:What are the key factors that contribute to household-level food security? What lessons can we learn from food secure households? What agricultural options and management strategies are likely to benefit femaleheaded households in particular? This paper addresses these questions using a unique dataset of 600 households that allows us to explore a wide range of indicators capturing different aspects of performance and well-being for different types of households-female-headed, male-headed, food secure, food insecure-and assess livelihoods options and strategies and how they influence food security. The analysis is based on a detailed farm household survey carried out in three sites in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.Results: Our results suggest that food insecurity may not be more severe for female-headed households than maleheaded households. We found that food secure farming households have a wider variety of crops on their farms and are more market oriented than are the food insecure. More domestic assets do not make female-headed households more food secure. For the other categories of assets (livestock, transport, and productive), we did not find evidence of a correlation with food security. Different livelihood portfolios are being pursued by male versus female-headed households, with female-headed households less likely to grow high-value crops and more likely to have a less diversified crop portfolio. Conclusions:These findings help identify local, national and regional policies and actions for enhancing food security of female-headed as well as male-headed households. These include interventions that improve households' access to information, e.g., though innovative communication and knowledge-sharing efforts and support aimed at enhancing women's and men's agricultural market opportunities.

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“…Other studies such as [14,[58][59][60] suggest that crop diversification can boost total household income (Fig. 5a), and our data support that hypothesis.…”

Section: Incomesupporting

confidence: 90%

Households and food security: lessons from food secure households in East Africa

et al. 2015

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“…All types of land use and land cover including the services are highly affected by the rapidly changing world climate (Opdam et al, 2009). The effect of droughts on rangelands was widely reported by different scholars (Abate et al, 2010;Tache and Oba, 2010).…”

Section: Causes Of Lulc Changesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Land use/cover change analysis and local community perception towards land cover change in the lowland of Bale rangelands, Southeast Ethiopia

Mussa¹,

Teka²,

Mesfin³

2017

Int. J. Biodivers. Conserv.

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Changes in ecosystem functions can be analyzed through changes in land use land cover (LULC) systems. This study was carried out to analyze the LULC changes and perception of local community towards land cover change in the lowlands of Bale, Southeast Ethiopia using remote sensing data, field observations and perception of local people. The results showed that cultivated land, settlement, bush land and bare land expanded by 13.81, 14.30, 12.62 and 22.3% respectively, between 1986 and 2016, whereas wood land, grassland and shrubby grassland declined by 33.82, 24.4 and 3.36% respectively. Local communities' perceptions indicate that climatic, demographic and anthropogenic factors as well as implementation of inappropriate government policy and development interventions were major driving forces of LULC dynamics. Environmental and local livelihoods implications such as rangeland degradation, bush encroachment, soil degradation, livestock loss, biodiversity loss and poverty increase resulted from these changes. Cumulative effects contribute to rangeland degradation and poverty. Therefore, to halt the impact of LULC disturbance and its implication on the likelihood of the pastoralist, appropriate management measures and government policies have to be implemented.

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“…This has greatly restricted the area available for communal grazing and adversely affected dependence of households on cattle husbandry. Overall, the livelihoods of the pastoral communities are subjected to the impact of climate-induced recurrent droughts (Tache and Oba 2010).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The declining trends of precipitation, combined with successive droughts, have led to a chronic water scarcity across the region (Hartmann and Sugulle 2009). Such large-scale and multi-faceted resource degradation implies a profound problem for cattle production and sustainability of pastoral livelihood among the Borana pastoralists in southern Ethiopia (Tache 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pastoral communities have developed various traditional adaptation mechanisms over the years to minimize their vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate variability (Omolo 2010;Tache 2010). One of these mechanisms is diversification of livestock species by increasing confidence in camels and other drought-tolerant livestock species (Hesse and Cotula 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Camel management as an adaptive strategy to climate change by pastoralists in southern Ethiopia

2017

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Introduction: Experiences of low rainfall and frequent droughts have had enormous impacts on livestock production and pastoralists' livelihoods in southern Ethiopia. The Borana pastoralists are dependent on livestock husbandry with the dominance of cattle in their herds for generations. Recently, the Borana communities have engaged in extensive livestock species diversification, with more focus on camel management as an adaptation strategy to the severity of recurrent droughts. Although increasing interests in camel management among the Borana pastoralists are acknowledged, the driving forces for the increase in camel population in the region have not been addressed. The aim of this study was to assess the trend in camel management as an adaptation strategy towards climate change among the Borana pastoral households. The study also investigated evidence of climate change and the driving factors for camel adoption. Methods: The study was conducted in three purposively selected kebeles, which is a lower administrative unit in Ethiopia, of Yabello district in Borana Zone in southern Ethiopia focusing on 156 randomly selected camel-owning households. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods whereby data gathering tools such as key informant interviews (KII), focus group discussions (FGD), household surveys (HS), and field observations were used. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 16. Results: Pastoralists' perceptions and the existing meteorological data analysis showed an increasing trend in temperature but a decreasing pattern in rainfall over the last 27 years (i.e., during the last four Gada periods). Both pastoralists' observations and existing meteorological data analysis showed an increasing incidence of recurrent droughts with decreasing availability of grazing and water resources. Respondents further explained that cattle are more vulnerable during severe droughts. The findings also showed that camel management as an adaptation strategy by the Borana pastoralists began recently and showed a steady increase in trend over the last four Gada periods. Pastoralists' perceptions and the existing analysis confirmed that camels' potential for high milk production and their capacities to withstand harsh environmental condition are among the many reasons that contributed to the adoption of camels by pastoralists in southern Ethiopia. Camels were also more preferred with the changing ecology of rangeland vegetation dynamics towards bush encroachment.Conclusions: It seems that the high potential of camels for milk production and their abilities to withstand harsh environmental conditions are the major driving forces that contributed to the adoption of camels by pastoralists in southern Ethiopia. Hence, the adoption of camels by pastoralists in southern Ethiopia could be best understood in terms of livelihood diversification option to ensure the food security of pastoral households. We conclude that the increase in camel population in Borana during th...

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Is Poverty Driving Borana Herders in Southern Ethiopia to Crop Cultivation?

Cited by 51 publications

References 30 publications

Households and food security: lessons from food secure households in East Africa

Households and food security: lessons from food secure households in East Africa

Land use/cover change analysis and local community perception towards land cover change in the lowland of Bale rangelands, Southeast Ethiopia

Camel management as an adaptive strategy to climate change by pastoralists in southern Ethiopia

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