Increasing livestock production in dry zones

Overgrazing of pastures, particularly in the spring period of seed production, is the major reason for low forage production and land degradation in the Middle East and North Africa. Conventional policies for increasing livestock production by using cereal grain can cause further degradation of rangeland areas and are expensive. Pasture development using medics and other annual pasture legumes can provide a quantum leap in forage production that will solve the problem of overgrazing. There is a need for grazing management particularly during the transitional phase of pasture establishment. A series of case studies illustrates alternative models of grazing management that have been developed from local grazing traditions.

Brian Chatterton is a farmer, consultant and former Minister of Agriculture in the South Australian government. Lynne Chat- terton is a consultant, political scientist and journalist, and former policy adviser on agriculture to the South Australian government. They can be contacted at Riverside, Lyndoch, Australia 5351 (Tel: 085 244060).

‘The Italian Government removed all Lib- yan livestock owners and their flocks from the steppe in eastern Libya for about three years in the 1930s. There was considerable natural regeneration of pasture and we have been told that there was dense grass 30-40 cm high. 8. and L. Chatterton, field notes of visit to Wadi Karouba Project, eastern Libya, 1983.

Increasing livestock production in dry zones

Policy options for the Middle East and North Africa

Brian and Lynne Chatterton

The problem of low animal production and desertification in the Middle East and North Africa has been attributed to unproductive and sparse pastures, which in turn owe their deterioration over time to sustain overgrazing. Multiple groups of livestock owners have the right to graze as many livestock as they wish on rangeland pasture and on cereal stubbles on farms. The result has been that landowners have had little or no incentive to establish pastures on farmland, and that development authorities have, until now, believed that any effort to repasture rangeland will be overwhelmed by uncontrolled grazing.

In effect, what has happened is that the destruction of natural pasture in the region has led to there being too many grazing rights over too little pasture. Given the demand for sheep and other meat, the problem now is not only to sustain the current flock numbers, but to increase them substantially.

Governments in the region have tried to resolve this dilemma by following a number of conventional policies:

1) To remove all livestock from the rangeland areas that are currently suffering the most acute erosion and allow the natural pastures to regenerate, after which the area will be reopened for grazing. The regeneration of areas on research sites which have been fenced and from which livestock have been excluded has been marked. However, the problem of how to motivate livestock owners to graze with care once the fences are removed has not been resolved. Translated to vast areas of public common this policy has the liability that it is socially and politically unacceptable and it is doubtful whether any government would have the resources or the power to enforce it long enough for it to be useful. ’

2) To invest in feedlots as an alternative form of animal production and employment for flockowners. Feedlots do provide an incentive for flocks on the rangelands to be removed and this does allow some regeneration to take place. While this is politically more acceptable than

0264-8377187/02121- 12$03.00 0 1987 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd 121

option one it still has a tendency to be socially disruptive in that it introduces the element of change of life style to nomadic communities. While it is possible in some regions to grow irrigated fodder to sustain the livestock for part of the year, there is a heavy dependency on grain and given the current deficit in grain production in the region. this is a charge on foreign currency.’

3) To leave the livestock to graze on rangeland pasture and feed supplementary grain to grazing animals. This causes virtually no social disruption and increases livestock production in the short term, but is extremely damaging to the environment. The supplementary grain allows high flock numbers to be sustained permanently on the rangelands even during drought periods when the soil and any rudimentary plant material are very vulnerable to destruction. This sustained severe grazing accelerates the destruction of the pasture cover and the rate of desertification.3

An alternative is to sow annual legume pastures to bring about a rapid increase in available pasture. This can be done by developing areas on which there is currently little production. These are: (a) The fallow phase of the cereal rotation in the region where rainfall averages between 2S(~SOOmm. (b) The marginal areas below 25Omm where opportunistic cereal crops are sown. Currently the rate of crop failure is high. yields are extremely low and crops are frequently abandoned to grazing. Improved pastures could replace both the cereal crops and the fallow season. (c) Uncultivated rangeland where volunteer pasture is poor due to lack of seed and nutrients.

These areas at present provide what pasture and straw resource there is for a livestock production system which relies on an interdependence between the rangeland and the cereal zone. Currently nomadic flocks graze on volunteer pasture on the rangeland during winter and spring and on stubbles and fallen grain from the cereal crop for part of their summer feed. In addition, the flockowner buys hay and cut straw from the farmer. is provided with subsidized fodder by governments in times of drought, and purchases grain when pasture or hay are unavailable. When cereal crops fail it is not uncommon for the flockowner to purchase the standing crop for grazing. Thus, in some areas the needs of the nomadic flock supply part of the farmer’s income. While in the cereal zone in the summer, the nomadic flocks graze the fallow that is often side by side with the cereal stubble. This fallow is also the grazing ground for any livestock the farmer owns and for village flocks. The bare fallow that is common in the region grows only a desultory pasture of volunteer weeds, but even that is valued by flockowners.

The use of medics

Several governments in the region (notably Morocco. Libya and Tunisia) have recently implemented policies to improve livestock production by converting the fallow phase of cereal production into a

‘0. Draz, ‘The Syrian Arab Republic - pasture phase using medics. while at the same time improving rangeland

rangeland conservation and development’, by reseeding the depleted seed bank with cultivars of medic that

World Animal Review, No 47, 1983, pp produce dense permanent pasture and provide protection from erosion.

2-14. 3B. and L. Chatterton, ‘Combating deserti-

This enables an increase in livestock production to take place in the

fication in the winter rainfall regions of cereal zone. taking some pressure off the rangeland. This has the

North Africa and the Middle East’, Ouflook advantage of not disturbing present flock ownership and as the reseeded

on Agriculture, Vol 10, No 8, 1981. rangeland will provide a boost in pasture production for the nomadic

122 LAND USE POLICY April 1987


flock, the traditional owner need not feel threatened by the newly emerging enterprise.

Interest in the region in medic pasture development has been aroused by the experience of southern Australia where a 400% increase in livestock numbers and a 70% increase in cereal production over a period of 30 years has been attributed to the use of medics (annual species of Medicago, principally M. truncatula, M. polymorpha, M. rugosa and M. scutellata) and sub clovers (Trifolium subterraneum, T. yanninicum, T. brachycalcycinum).” The climate and soils of the region are similar to southern Australia and the cultivars of medic used in Australia were in most cases introduced from the Mediterranean area.5 Medic has the advantages that it originated in the region, has hard seed reserves that survive drought and cereal crops being planted over it, and naturally regenerates each autumn following rainfall. Once established, provided it receives regular dressings of phosphate and is grazed with reasonable care, it will continue to produce high quality green pasture for winter and spring grazing and a high protein seed pod and residual dry matter for summer grazing. An advantage from the farmers point of view is that once the original sowing has been made, the pasture does not need further tillage or harvesting or resowing, but keeps regenerat- ing spontaneously. On rangeland medic can be used alone or with fodder shrubs, as has been done in Libya and Jordan.

Medic pasture offers the possibility of a quantum leap in pasture production within one year and this makes it much more acceptable to farmers and livestock owners and to governments responsible for national policies. The present social pattern need not be substantially affected; the risk factor for both farmer and nomad is kept to a

“D.W. Puckridge and R.J. French, ‘The annual legume pasture in cereal - ley

minimum; and there is potential for substantial economic gain fir both.

farming systems of southern Australia: a The critical factor for success remains, however, the need to develop a review’, Agriculture, Ecosystems and En- grazing management regime that will conserve the seed bank necessary vironment, Vol 9, 1983, pp 229-267. See also C.M. Donald, ‘The progress of Austra-

to ensure the continuing regeneration of the medic pastures year after

lian agriculture and the role of pastures in year. In this regard, the principle of a quantum leap is the means of environmental change’, Australian Journal reversing the present dilemma of too manv grazing rights for too little Science, Vol 27, NO-~, 1964, pp 187-198;

<- ._.-

and C.M. Donald, ‘Innovation in Australian pasture.- _

agriculture’ in D.B. Williams, ed, Agricul- Carter estimated that there is about 30 million hectares of fallow

ture in the Australian Economy, Sydney land in North Africa and the Middle East where the present poor University Press, Sydney, 1982. 5P.S. Cocks, ‘The origin and ecology of

volunteer pastures and cultivated fallow could be replaced-with a medic

pasture legumes’, Proceedings of Intema- pasture in a medic/cereal rotation.6 He calculated that if 70% of this tional Congress on Dry/and farming, land was converted to medic pasture there would be sufficient additional South Australian Department of Agricul- ture. Adelaide, 1980.

forage to feed approximately 100 million extra sheep. The medic

6E.D. Carter, ‘A review of the existing and pasture would add nitrogen to the soil and he estimated this increment potential role of legumes in the farming to be 1.4 million tonnes or an amount 65% greater than all the nitrogen systems of the Near East and North African region’, A report to the Internation-

fertilizer currently applied. Subsequent research has shown that the

al Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry estimates made by Carter are conservative. Work on commercial farms Areas, ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria, 1978. in Libya,’ 7B. and L. Chatterton, ‘Report on rainfed

at the ICARDA Research Centre in Syria8 and at Fez, Karia

cereal and livestock production in West Tissia in Morocco’ have all shown that Carter’s increase in animal

Asia and North Africa’, South Australian production can be achieved. Department of Agriculture, Adelaide, 1979. ‘P.S. Cocks,

Since the early 1970s there have been many attempts in the Middle ‘Integration Of cereal/

livestock production in the farming sys- East and North Africa to establish farming and grazing systems based on

tems of north Syria’, ICARDA, Aleppo, annual medic pastures similar to those used in southern Australia. The Syria, 1985. gM. Ismaili, ‘Forage production and range

first projects were in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria in the early 1970s.

management: an integrated agricultural Jordan, Iraq and Syria established projects in the early 1980s and

programme in Morocco’, FAO, Rome, Morocco began a large medic development project in 1985. 1985. In examining reports of medic farming projects attempted in the

LAND USE POLICY April 1987 123

increasing livesrock producliorl in dry LOIZ~S

‘qhe problems of utilization of Australian cultivars in areas with cold winters appear to be frost and the need to identify suitable strains of rhizobium where they are absent from the soil. For work on these problems see P.S. Cocks, ‘Utilization of local resources for pasture cultivars’, Tropical Agricultural Research Centre, Series No 18, Ministry of Agriculture, Japan, 1985; and ‘Development of dryland agriculture, Jezira Project, Northern Iraq’, Western Australian Overseas Projects Authority, March 1985. “P.A. Oram, Pastures and Fodder Crops in Rotations in Mediterranean Agriculture, FAO, Rome, 1956, pp 14-16. Also see W.J. Spafford, ‘How to improve wheat yields in South Australia’, Journal of fhe South Australian Department of Agricul- ture, Vol XXXI, 1927, p 426.

region, it becomes apparent that there were some initial technical problems associated with the use of Australian medic cultivars. Early cultivars were selected for the mild winters and low altitudes where dryland farming takes place in Australia. These cultivars have proved well suited to Morocco, parts of Algeria, Tunisia and Libya but did not provide reliable pastures on the high plateau of Algeria or in northern Syria and Iraq where winters are severe. Research in the 19XOs has resulted in the selection of cultivars of medics and strains of rhizobium which have largely overcome this problem.“’

The decision to go straight into a medic/cereal rotation in cereal zones also struck difficulties when it became necessary for farmers to cease deep ploughing and to cultivate at shallow depths to avoid burying the medic seed so deep that it would not germinate after the crop had been harvested. Scientific research shows that there is no diminution in cereal yield when this change is made. ” Shallow cultivation techniques, developed in Australia over 100 years ago. rely on the operation of specially designed implements so a fundamental change of tillage techniques in the region is heavily dependent on the provision of suitable equipment and extension programmes.

These technical and operational barriers have been overcome when adequate attention has been paid to them. However, the matter of developing a grazing management regime to optimize the benefits of the newly established pasture poses problems that are quite different in magnitude from those described above.

First, the Australian experience can contribute little to a mode1 that is of relevance to the livestock owners in the region beyond year round grazing (as opposed to feedlotting). The communal grazing of rangeland pasture and cereal stubble in North Africa and the Middle East is unknown in Australia where the individual has total grazing rights over land, and full time shepherding and night time shedding is unknown. The problem of grazing management in the region is usually perceived as resolvable if the social pattern of nomadism is transformed into one of sedentary ownership. It has. in the past. not been easy to demonstrate to all groups of flockowners that benefits can be gained from changes in fundamental social patterns. If sufficient pasture can be made available to meet the demands imposed by grazing rights inherent in the present social system, this conventional point of conflict is avoided.

If fallow areas and rangeland were all converted to medic pasture there would be ample forage for all the present livestock and many more. Overgrazing would no longer be a problem. The problem then becomes one not of overgrazing but the transitional problem of how to establish sufficient control over the numbers of livestock given access to the pasture at any one time.

The conventional approach to this dilemma has been to fence and guard areas that are being rehabilitated and to carefully control grazing management within these projects. Traditional grazing rights are swept away, usually without compensation, and there is naturally resentment from the nomads who cut the project fences to reassert their traditional rights. Not only is there considerable hostility to the pasture improvement programme. but large resources are wasted in guarding and fencing the pastures which could be better spent on improving larger areas.

In considering ways of introducing a measure of control over the

LAND USE POLICY April 1987


numbers of livestock given access to the pasture at any given time, it is

useful to examine the effects of overgrazing in terms of the seasonal pattern of pasture growth. The most critical period for medics and other annual pastures is the spring period of seed production. Overgrazing earlier in the winter may reduce forage production, but in most seasons the plants can recover. Overgrazing in summer will mean the consump- tion of large amounts of seed by sheep, but on most soil types sufficient seed is also buried by the action of the sheep’s hooves for the pasture to regenerate from dormant seed in future seasons. Overgrazing in the spring removes the green seed pods completely. Seed reserves in the soil are reduced and pasture density falls in the following season. If the overgrazing is repeated year after year, the pasture enters a spiral of declining seed production followed by low forage production from which it can only slowly recover. ”

Moderate grazing in the spring from the time of flowering to the time when the dry seed pods drop on the ground presents few problems under a grazing system where livestock numbers are stable, as this is the period of maximum pasture growth. In Australia it is the period when grazing pressure reaches its seasonal peak before lambs and surplus sheep are sold yet mature pastures can respond to this pressure, produce seeds and a surplus of dry forage for summer. In North Africa and the Middle East spring is a period of acute forage shortage both in the cereal zone and in the steppe. Areas of medic pasture would, if grazed on a common basis by steadily increasing numbers of livestock, be severely overgrazed and over a number of seasons would fail completely.

On average, flockowners in the region can expect returns per head that are about five times higher than those received by their Australian counterparts. These higher returns are both in money values and relative to cereal cropping. I3 Good returns from livestock provide a strong incentive to flockowners to observe the requirements for controlled grazing, but only if there appears to be plenty of pasture available. Once that is established, the flock size is constrained by other factors, such as market demand, provision of water, or availability of additional livestock for example.

The present method of controlling livestock by means of shepherding is seen by some as archaic, but in countries where there are people willing to do the work it provides some advantages, particularly in the rangeland. Provided one has the cooperation of the shepherd the grazing management can be quite precise. In Australia the sheep which range freely within large areas of fenced steppe frequently overgraze some areas while neglecting others completely. Shepherds can organize grazing to achieve a more even utilization of the pasture.

The following case studies show that there are already established practices that can be used constructively during the critical transitional

‘*B. and L. Chatterton, ‘Alleviating land phase to introduce controls on numbers of grazing animals. These degradation and increasing cereal and livestock production in North Africa and the

glternative means of organizing grazing management and grazing rights

Middle East using annual medicago pas- do not require extreme social changes. Locally evolving systems in some

ture’, Agriculture, Ecosystems and fn- cases may not be making optimal use of the pasture, but their vironment, Vol 11, 1984, pp 117-l 29. 13D R Harvey, ‘Field evaluation and finan-

acceptability to the local community can provide a sound basis for the .

cial analysis of Jordan Dryland Farming development of more refined systems in future. Project farmer’s demonstr&on areas it? the season 1982-1983’, Appendix 3, Quarterly Report No 15, Jordan-Australia Case studies in the cereal zone Dryland Farming Project, ADAB, Canber- ra, Australia, 1984. Land in the cereal zone is owned by individuals, groups or the state but


Increasing livestock production in dry zone.,

other flockowners have grazing rights over the land when it is not growing a crop. The strength of these non-codified grazing rights varies in different parts of the region. In some countries there is strong supervision by landowners and governments of grazing by nomadic flocks. In others, nomadic flocks appear to do as they wish. Larger farmers are in a better position to organize the grazing of nomadic flocks on their land than small farmers with fragmented holdings. In the spring medic pastures will be overgrazed and seed production severely reduced if other flockowners exercise their traditional rights to the common use of all land not under crop. In summer if large nomadic flocks graze the dry medic residues as well as the cereal stubbles the owner of the pasture will not receive a large part of the return from the investment in pasture improvement and the standard of pasture care may decline.

Cooperative farms

Tunisia and Algeria

Some farms in the 30(&450mm rainfall zone have converted their volunteer pasture and fallow to medic pastures. Traditionally this would become common grazing during the winter for the small flocks owned by neighbouring and other local landowners. In the summer the high quality dry medic residues would be used according to the same tradition by the nomadic flocks that come into the zone to graze the cereal stubbles. The cooperatives have been able to convince other flockowners not to graze the medic pasture while still allowing access to the cereal stubbles. The landowner, who was not prepared to exclude the Piomadic flocks from fallow which produced poor volunteer pasture, is now motivated by the increased size of his own flock and the value of the medic pasture that replaces the fallow to exercise control and exclude the nomadic flocks from this land. This has been possible in part because the cooperatives are reasonably large (30(~500 ha) and have a number of members who can supervise the grazing of stubbles by nomadic flocks. ”

Private farms

Jordan

The small size and fragmented nature of holdings in the cereal zone of Jordan (average rainfall from 2SG350mm) has proved to be a major obstacle to the development of an acceptable grazing system for medic pastures. Most farms are only a few hectares in area and individual plots are even smaller. Medic pastures have been successfully established during the course of a farm improvement programme, but once farmers began to graze them in the winter all other local flocks grazed the area as well. In summer the position was worse with the larger nomadic flocks coming in and roaming almost at will.

One method of grazing control that was developed was to sow a small quantity of barley with the medic. The area was then considered a ‘cereal crop’ according to tradition and not grazed on a common basis until the owner had harvested the grain. Some farmers sold the ‘crop’

14B. and L. Chatter-ton. ReDorts 1980 and and medic pasture as a whole to nomadic flockowners in summer who 1981 on the potential of the South Austra- lian medic/cereal system in Algerian agri-

then camped on the area and excluded other flocks until all the pasture

culture, and field notes 1980 and 1981 of has been utilized. While this system was an ingenious use of local

inspection of farms using medic in Tunisia. traditions it can only be considered a temporary arrangement. If medic



pastures are not grazed at all in winter they will become overrun with weeds. When the medic pasture regenerated in future seasons from dormant seed there will not be any ‘cereal crop’ to protect it from overgrazing unless the farmer reseeds cereals. To do this is costly and contributes to erosion. Selling the medic pasture with its cereal crop protective cover requires careful timing. The greatest demand for pasture and the best prices are obtained in the spring some three or four weeks before the cereal crops have been harvested and the stubble has become available for grazing. At this time the arable land not in crop has been ploughed and other pastures on waste land are complelely eaten out. If the medic pasture has not been grazed all winter it will be tall and at the green pod stage of seed production. The influx of a large number of sheep at this stage will mean that these pods are eaten in large amounts and few escape to ripen, drop on the ground and become buried to protect them from summer grazing. Without this buried reserve of seed the pasture will fail to regenerate in future.

Another method of protecting the dry medic pods from overgrazing is to lightly cultivate the ground when the supply of dry pods appears threatened in early summer. l5 This practice, originated in Jordan, has since been used with success in Morocco.

Syria

The social organization of grazing in Syria appears to be similar to Jordan, but farmers in Northern Syria (average rainfall 400 mm) in one village Tah have developed their own medic grazing system utilizing spontaneously occurring local ecotypes of medic (M. polymorpha). We have observed these pastures and spoken with farmers involved, but have not yet established the arrangements by which local farmers were able to reserve the additional grazing for their own flocks and to exclude overgrazing by other flocks. They told us they had so much pasture that they asked other flockowners to bring their flocks in and spoke of small numbers of sheep in each instance. The medic pastures at this village were protected and utilized as grazing in the first instance quite spontaneously by the landowner. He observed the benefits of medic pasture growing on his land and some seven or eight other farmers have since collected seed pods from his pasture and sown their own areas. This has all been achieved on small fragmented holdings without any fences. The pastures we observed were on poor land that was both stony and steep. The better land was ploughed deep for fallows before winter cereals and some summer crops were planted on these fallows. Deep ploughing and fallow will prevent the regeneration of medic. The ICARDA research unit working with this village claims the medic pasture in 1983184 was capable of carrying in excess of 10 sheeplha.lh

Libya

A large dryland farming development established in 1972 in the Jebel Akhdar (average rainfall 300 mm) set up just over 2000 individual family farms of 60-80 hectares fenced on each farm boundary so farmers had exclusive grazing rights to medic pastures and cereal stubbles. This was accepted by the community on the basis of mutual benefit. There

15D.R. Harvey, op tit, Ref 13. “P S Cocks, ‘Ecological study of annual

were no subdivisional fences within each farm so shepherding was still

leg;mes in the marginal lands of Syria and needed to prevent sheep grazing cereal crops during the winter. As

Jordan’, /CA/WA Annual Report, 1984, p confidence in the continuing abundance of medic pastures increased,

291. the usual practice of transporting the flocks off the farm and into



rangeland areas diminished and by 1082 only a few farmers were still taking their flocks to the steppe for winter grazing. This was not forced on them by a shortage of winter pasture. The integration of livestock and cereal production on individual farms in the Jebel Al Akhdar region has led to an overall increase in livestock numbers and an increase in

cereal yields.17

Case studies of rangeland

Village community tand

Iraq. At J’Ravi in western Iraq (annual rainfall 200 mm) a Western Australian team was employed to carry out a pasture development project on all the community lands of a village. The area of about 7200 ha was sown to medic (cultivars Circle Valley, Serena, Borung, etc) and fenced. The fences played no real part in the project and were not in fact sheep proof. The area had been used almost exclusively in the past by the village community and they were able by community pressure to exclude the small incursions of non-village sheep. The community grazing area is on the margin of the cultivated steppe. The northern part of the area was sown to cereals each year, but declining soil fertility meant that the resulting crops were grazed in most seasons. On the southern desert fringe the land was not cultivated, but natural pastures had been severely reduced by years of overgrazing which had reduced

seed supplies. The project successfully established medic pastures, but there were

few changes to the traditional grazing pattern beyond control over the number of sheep given access to the new pastures. The village flocks still migrate to the desert in the winter and go to the cereal zone for stubble grazing in the summer. The spring grazing is on the medic pastures grown on the village common. As the common was developed rapidly (two seasons) and there was a substantial lift in pasture production, existing flock numbers of about 20 000 sheep have not caused overgrazing of medic pastures during the spring period of seed production. The problem that could arise in the future is how to prevent individual flockowners from within the community from expanding their flocks beyond the capacity of the pasture. The community must be able to establish means of exercising some control over increases in flock numbers so that seed production is maintained. A further requirement will be for an equitable distribution of the costs of maintaining the pasture; for example, the cost of dressing the pasture with phosphate and any weed control that may become necessary in future. Crucial to this exercise is that, to date, there has been virtually no exclusion of flocks accustomed to graze the area and therefore no diminution of traditional rights of access. An incentive to the development of necessary control mechanisms is the fact that the right to graze has become much more valuable now that the availability of medic pasture has increased the production of milk and meat from each animal. The

17Harvest in All Seasons in Jabel El number of grazing rights available has not grown beyond the capacity of

Akhdar, Libyan Council for Land Reclama- the pasture at this stage, but if that event occurs, then competition for

tion and Reconstruction, 1978. See also access will be keen. T.M. Prance, ‘Economic comparison of Australian and traditional farming

The project has found a naturally occurring ‘sub-common’ within the

methods, El Marj, Libya 1979, in B. and L. vast area of common steppe, and by developing the pastures of the

Chatterton, op tit, Ref 7. sub-common very rapidly have moved through the period of transitional



overgrazing of medic to the stage where there may soon be surplus grazing rights to distribute. ‘*

Grazing cooperatives

Algeria. In Algeria grazing cooperatives were established in the steppe region (average rainfall 150-250 mm) as part of a national policy to improve the standard of living of nomads through permanent settle- ment. These (CEPRAS) cooperatives were established in the Algerian steppe during the 1970s and were based on the principle of allocating a part of the vast grazing common of the steppe to one particular related group or sub-tribe which had been the major users of this portion of the steppe. The areas were originally fenced, but fences have fallen into disuse where the flockowning community as a whole has accepted the exclusive use of these areas by the cooperatives. While the details of each cooperative vary, the one we have observed consists of 10 000 ha, has rainfall of 180mm and currently supports 5000 sheep. The sheep are owned by individual members of the cooperative, but the grazing rotation is agreed to by all. In this case, one half of the area is grazed each year.

The cooperative has been successful in improving the natural vegetation (mainly Artimesia species) on its land and is now a small oasis of vegetation in a vast degraded steppe. The contrast has been achieved slowly as no pastures were sown or fertilizers used. Most of the original cooperatives collapsed as their members did not have the patience to wait for the benefits of natural regeneration. While stocking rates are now higher than the surrounding steppe and can be sustained, the regeneration was achieved by reducing stocking rates. Had these cooperatives been linked with a medic pasture development programme similar to that used at J’Ravi which provided rapid increases in pasture production, there would have been a stronger incentive for flockowners to make the new system work and accept its discipline. It may have been that many more of the cooperatives would have survived.

This scheme was developed with the intention of making greater social changes to nomadic life than the project at J’Ravi. It was hoped that the cooperative would provide sufficient grazing for the flockowners all the year round so that they would not be forced to migrate with their families in search of seasonal pasture. This has not proved always to be the case and some sheep are still moved to the cereal stubbles in the summer. l9

Syria. In Syria, Draz has reported the establishment of grazing cooperatives based on the traditional Hema system, that requires tribes to protect certain areas of pasture by keeping livestock out of them until general agreement is reached that seasonal conditions demand access. Draz reports that this method of control of access has enabled large areas to be protected from grazing while atriplex has been established

18Western Australian Overseas Project and that, in 1982, these areas were the basis for 190 cooperatives Authoritv. OD cit. Ref 10. covering 10.2 million ha of rangeland with 24 000 members. 3 000 000 ‘9B. and i. khatierton, field notes on study of steppe land development in Central and

sheep and 3700 goats. The incentives to flockowners to join the system

Western Alaeria 1981 and 1983. See also were created using World Food Program funds for loans to build feed Ksar Chellia Integrated Steppe Develop- stores and animal health centres and short-term loans for the purchase ment Project, Mission Report. Annexure 6 Livestock, South Australian Department of

and storage of feed for fattening sheep.*” It does not appear-that the

Agriculture, Adelaide, March 1981. problems of grazing management have yet been tackled and the feeding “0 Draz, op tit, Ref 2. of grain to sheep could have even more serious consequences for the


lncreusing livestock production in dry zones

steppe pastures unless the animals are completely removed when grain is being fed and a planned system of pasture utilization introduced. It has not been possible to observe the physical operation of this scheme, so it is difficult to assess what alternatives may have been available once the Hema based control was accepted by the communities concerned.

Private ownership of grazing areas

Libya. In 1974 a programme was established to integrate pasture grown on wadi flood plains and reseeded rangeland to provide year round forage for livestock held by small, private landowners. The bed of the Wadi Kharouba (south of Jebel Al Akhdar) was sown to a mixture of barley and medic (Jemalong and Harbinger) which receives on average three inundations each year. The medic has regenerated each year since then and provides abundant pasture. At first the pasture was fenced off to exclude local flocks and the pasture was cut for hay by the government. Since 1982 the area has been subdivided into individual family farms. Each proprietor has 40 ha of medic pasture for his exclusive use, together with an area of steppe. In 1982 this steppe was being rehabilitated. Atriplex was being planted and watered by hand in widely spaced rows on sheet limestone country, and medic and superphosphate were being aerially broadcast over the entire area. The local community was persuaded to agree to the programme but poaching of the improved pasture in the wadi bed occurred. This was controlled by withdrawing access to animal health services until the culprit had paid the cost of repairing the fence and the imposed penalty. The land and the grazing rights on it are owned by individual farm families. Supervision of the flocks is by shepherds.“’

State farms

Libya. At Adjulyat, an arid area (130 mm) devoid of wadi flood plain and part of the Jefara Plains project, medic pastures (CultiLJar

Harbinger) were sown among artimesia bushes. While the intention was to develop the area for a cereal/medic rotation, the risks of wind

erosion following removal of small shrubs and the continual cultivation of the light sandy soils, proved too great. The land use that evolved was permanent medic pasture growing between thinly spaced native artimesia bushes. Stocking rates of 0.75 sheep/ha have been achieved and growth rates of lambs fed on these pastures have been recorded at 200 grams per day. This area of approximately 3000 ha is fenced, local flockowners are excluded and it is managed as a state farm. Poaching is punished by several days in gaol.”

Grazing cooperatives

Tunisia. An interesting example of modification of traditional grazing rights in the high rainfall zone is the grazing cooperatives established at Sejnane (average rainfall 750 mm) in Tunisia in 19X1. Development consisted of clearing hillsides of low oak scrub and planting medic and sub clover pastures. The valleys have been partitioned into a series of

“8, and L. Chatterton, Field Notes of tour individual holdings for each family on which they grow food and some

of inspection of sites 1982. cash crops and the hillsides are used as a grazing common to which these ?jJ.M. Allen, ‘Ley farming in Libya - North Africa’,

farmers have access. Establishment costs were borne by the Tunisian WOO’ Techno’ogy and Sheep government and aid funds, but maintenance is carried out by the

Breeding, Vol XXVII, No IV, December 1979, pp 5-9. members of the community and grazing rights are allocated on the basis



of inherited flock numbers being translated into access rights to the

communal pastures.2’

Conclusions

The dilemma facing development planners of the arid and semi-arid regions of the Middle East and North Africa is that while pasture improvement with annual legumes will rapidly increase livestock production and reduce desertification, it requires control of grazing pressure particularly during the establishment phase. Communities will require convincing that the pasture improvement will provide them with a leap in the value of their grazing rights. This must go hand in hand with an awareness that this value will only be maintained if they cooperate and manage the pasture to ensure its regeneration.

Policies formulated to bring about increases in livestock production based on pasture improvement should take account of the following factors:

1) The conventional development strategy of a step by step increase from plot experiment through pilot stages to widescale plantings may need to be changed. The grazing management problems of pilot areas of improved pasture in a vast grazing common may well be insoluble and a rapid ‘quantum leap’ into large-scale plantings over the whole of a sub-common may be a better method of resolving the problems of overgrazing. Such an approach would place less emphasis on fencing and guarding improved areas within which an optimum grazing management was practiced and more emphasis on reducing overgrazing by a rapid expansion of the improved areas. Rather than devoting resources to the exclusion of ‘non-project’ animals, resources would be devoted to the rapid inclusion of the poachers into the improved pasture

area. 2) Assuming that rapid and large-scale pasture development will

provide additional forage fast enough to overcome the problem of transitional overgrazing, there remains the problem of pasture care. It has been assumed that there must be a link between landownership and grazing rights otherwise there will be no incentive to fertilize and care for the pasture once it has been established. The case studies show that there are various social organizations that can be persuaded to carry out this task. The development at J’Ravi shows that pasture development can take place simultaneously with the evolution of a management group. An alternative strategy may be for the national government to assume responsibility for pasture care such as the application of phosphate fertilizer. This could be considered as an alternative to the current subsidies provided for concentrated feedstuffs. It would have the attraction of not only assisting flockowners but benefiting the whole community through reduced desertification. Some countries in the region have ample phosphate resources, so a subsidy on the use of fertilizer in the rangeland would be balanced by a diminution in the present level of foreign exchange expended on imported grain.

23G, Jaritz, Amelioration des Herbages et 3) Research and development priorities should be reassessed to

Cultures Fourrageres dans /a Nord-Ouesf provide greater resources to schemes likely to provide a solution to de /a Tunisie: Etude Particuliere des grazing management problems. Such programmes have been neglected Prairies de Trefles-Graminees avec Trifo- lium Subterraneum, GTZ, 1982. Also B.

by governments and international institutions. The case studies illus-

and L. Chatterton, field notes of tour of trate a number of ways that the problems of transitional overgrazing and

inspection of site 1981. the distribution of grazing rights are being tackled. Problems of grazing



management and grazing rights are not going to be solved within the confines of fenced research centres nor by research scientists alone. Resources should be devoted to applied programmes undertaken with the cooperation of groups of flockowners. More emphasis needs to be given to working directly with farmers and flockowners to develop suitable farming and grazing systems for the region which will allow the vast potential from improved medic pastures to be achieved. As these strategies are devised, adequate resources should be made available to extend the information to other groups and communities.


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Increasing livestock production in dry zones

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