Population pressure, land degradation and sustainable agricultural technologies in the Sahel

Ramaswamy, Sunder; Sanders, John H.

doi:10.1016/0308-521x(92)90047-r

Cited by 34 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Livestock subsist on natural rangelands for about 6 months and depend mainly on crop residues for the rest of the year (Williams et al, 1997). The importance of crop residues as animal feed in the region is growing rapidly with the significant decline in grazing areas due to increasing cultivation of marginal lands and fallows as a result of demographic pressure (Ramaswamy and Sanders, 1992). Common crop residues in the Sahel include millet straw, sorghum straw, cowpea hay and groundnut haulms (Williams et al, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Supplementation with groundnut haulms for sheep fattening in the West African Sahel

Ayantunde¹,

Delfosse²,

Fernández-Rivera³

et al. 2007

Trop Anim Health Prod

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Groundnut haulms along with cowpea hay are major crop residues used for animal fattening in the West African Sahel. In traditional sheep fattening, feeds are always provided ad-hoc and in an unregulated fashion, which is rather wasteful. As a preliminary study to establish the optimal feeding levels of groundnut haulms for profitable sheep fattening, a feeding trial was conducted for 70 days with four levels of groundnut haulms (0, 150, 300 and 450 g/day) and a basal diet of bush hay. The effects of supplementation with groundnut haulms on feed intake, water consumption, live weight changes and economic return were determined. Twenty-four Peuhl Oudah rams with average initial weight of 28.6 kg (SD = 1.4) were randomly allocated to four treatments defined by the four levels of groundnut haulms in the diet. Faeces and urine were collected in weeks 5 and 9 of the trial. Digestible organic matter intake (g/(kg LW)0.75) and nitrogen intake (g/day) increased linearly with the level of groundnut haulms offered. Sheep that were fed only bush hay lost 18.4 g/day, while those that were offered 150, 300 and 450 g of groundnut haulms gained 1.4, 19.3 and 40.2 g/day, respectively. The gross return ranged from 1883 to 4946 FCFA per ram. Net benefit, after removing the feed and veterinary costs from the gross return, ranged from 368 to 1400 FCFA per ram.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Supplementation with groundnut haulms for sheep fattening in the West African Sahel

Ayantunde¹,

Delfosse²,

Fernández-Rivera³

et al. 2007

Trop Anim Health Prod

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“…Some decades ago these practices could provide a livelihood for the farmer, but today the fallow cultivation system is increasingly threatened by population growth, especially in the semi-arid regions of West Africa. Cultivated land has been extended, fallow periods have been reduced and even permanent cultivation is now practised (Ramaswamy & Sanders, 1992). Farmers in Niger claim that in former years the fallow period was normally 15 years or longer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of shrubs on soil characteristics and their function in Sahelian agro-ecosystems in semi-arid Niger

Wezel

Rajot²,

Herbrig

2000

Journal of Arid Environments

218

128

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“…Population growth has been accompanied with cropland expansion and agricultural intensification [2][3][4], and with an increase in livestock numbers, from approximately 200 to over 430 million [5,6]. These changes coincided with two sequences of extremely dry years in 1972-1973 and again in 1983-1984 that were part of a longer drought that lasted from the end of the 1960s to the mid-1990s [7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and Anthropogenic Degradation of Vegetation in the Sahel from 1982 to 2006

Rishmawi

Prince

2016

Remote Sensing

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There is a great deal of debate on the extent, causes, and even the reality of land degradation in the Sahel. Investigations carried out before approximately 2000 using remote sensing data suggest widespread reductions in biological productivity, while studies extending beyond 2000 consistently reveal a net increase in vegetation production, strongly related to the recovery of rainfall following the extreme droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, and thus challenging the notion of widespread, long-term, subcontinental-scale degradation. Yet, the spatial variations in the rates of vegetation recovery are not fully explained by rainfall trends. It is hypothesized that, in addition to rainfall, other meteorological variables and human land use have contributed to vegetation dynamics. Throughout most of the Sahel, the interannual variability in growing season ΣNDVI gs (measured from satellites, used as a proxy of vegetation productivity) was strongly related to rainfall, humidity, and temperature (mean r 2 = 0.67), but with rainfall alone was weaker (mean r 2 = 0.41). The mean and upper 95th quantile (UQ) rates of change in ΣNDVI gs in response to climate were used to predict potential ΣNDVI gs -that is, the ΣNDVI gs expected in response to climate variability alone, excluding any anthropogenic effects. The differences between predicted and observed ΣNDVI gs were regressed against time to detect any long-term (positive or negative) trends in vegetation productivity. Over most of the Sahel, the trends did not significantly depart from what is expected from the trends in meteorological variables. However, substantial and spatially contiguous areas (~8% of the total area of the Sahel) were characterized by negative, and, in some areas, positive trends. To explore whether the negative trends were human-induced, they were compared with the available data of population density, land use, and land biophysical properties that are known to affect the susceptibility of land to degradation. The spatial variations in the trends of the residuals were partly related to soils and tree cover, but also to several anthropogenic pressures.

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Population pressure, land degradation and sustainable agricultural technologies in the Sahel

Cited by 34 publications

References 17 publications

Supplementation with groundnut haulms for sheep fattening in the West African Sahel

Supplementation with groundnut haulms for sheep fattening in the West African Sahel

Influence of shrubs on soil characteristics and their function in Sahelian agro-ecosystems in semi-arid Niger

Environmental and Anthropogenic Degradation of Vegetation in the Sahel from 1982 to 2006

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