Communal Livestock Farming
The Communal livestock farming (dt. Municipal animal husbandry ) is a form of agricultural livestock , which in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa is practiced.
Characteristic
The Communal Livestock Farming is based on pastoralism and agro-pastoralism .
The Communal Livestock Farming is in a clear contrast to commercial farming. The commercial concept is to be understood as the “typical” commercial animal husbandry for the western world, in which a private person or private company owns agricultural land and continuously strives to increase the efficiency of the production of one or more animal products (e. B. Meat , milk , wool and eggs ) to maximize.
In contrast to commercial livestock farming, only land use rights exist in communal livestock farming , while private land ownership is largely non-existent.
In most cases, in areas characterized by Communal Livestock Farming , only the areas used for arable farming are privately owned , while the pastures are shared.
In Communal Livestock Farming , only the farm animals are privately owned, while the pastureland is used jointly by the residents of a village or a small settlement . In addition, the production goals in communal livestock farming are far less commercially oriented and are primarily geared towards covering family or communal needs .
Compared to commercial livestock farming, communal livestock farming is generally very labor-intensive, since the use of modern technology and investments in the modernization of management are largely absent. In addition, there is usually no specialization in a certain product, as is common practice in commercial animal husbandry, so that several goals such as B. the availability of draft animals and manure , the production of meat and capital formation can be tracked simultaneously. In this regard, in contrast to commercial animal husbandry, more importance is attached to productivity per hectare than productivity per animal.
Usually, compared to commercial animal husbandry, the aim is to enlarge the herd rather than maximize the turnover of animals for slaughter. In this regard, a numerically large herd is seen as a status symbol in many regions of sub-Saharan Africa and, at the same time, primarily used for capital formation, while usually only a very small number of animals is slaughtered or sold.
Nowadays it is by no means the case that the entire animal population of a communally used pasture region is generally distributed relatively evenly over the resident households. Rather, taking into account the regionally different distribution of wealth and regionally given alternative sources of income, an increasing concentration of animal populations in a decreasing number of households can be observed. For example, In Namibia, for example, fewer than half of all households in municipal areas have cattle. However, there are strong regional differences in the distribution of cattle: In the Kunene region, for example, B. 80% of the cattle to 40% of the households, while in the Kavango region there is still a much more homogeneous distribution with generally smaller herds per household.
background
From the point of view of the black African self-image, which despite temporary colonial rule still exists today, agriculturally usable areas with all their functions and resources belong to the respective tribe , which lives in a certain area. This more or less socialist view, which is indomitable to this day, dictates that only the respective tribal chief has to dictate who is to use the land in question, how and when. The resulting view that the country belongs to everyone is also repeatedly a political issue in the African countries south of the Sahara.
So formulated z. B. the Zanu-PF , the dictatorial ruling party of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe , as one of their political principles that the country is a common heritage of the nation and that no one should own the land or parts of it as a private person. Quote: The land is a common heritage and no one should enjoy absolute ownership of it ... ).
Economy, problems and possible solutions
Due to the primary focus on covering family or communal needs, the productivity of communal livestock farming is extremely low compared to commercial livestock farming. For example, Communal Livestock Farming in Namibia only contributed around 5% to the total amount of animal products produced in the country in 1998, although at that time around 48% of the country's pasture was cultivated in this way. By 2011 this proportion could only be increased to 6%.
Because the number of farm animals per area is generally adjusted much more to the available amount of drinking water than to the actually available amount of feed , the problem of overgrazing and soil erosion often occurs in areas characterized by communal livestock farming , and periods of drought also tend to have an effect there stronger from.
Many areas in sub-Saharan Africa managed with Communal Livestock Farming are now considered heavily overgrazed.
Fences to demarcate pastures are almost completely absent in communal livestock farming , as well as systematic grazing plans that could prevent individual areas from overgrazing. In addition, an effective prevention of the spread of animal diseases is practically non-existent: Due to the extensive lack of fences and the associated shared use of pasture land and water points by different herds, diseases and parasites are much more easily transmitted from one animal to the other in communal livestock farming than is the case in commercial animal husbandry, in which contact between animals from different herds is usually prevented as effectively as possible. The very limited use of drugs in communal livestock farming certainly contributes to this .
Due to this quasi-permanent mixing of individual herds, z. B. at the water points, there is usually no targeted animal breeding . Rather, mating between animals from different herds is common practice, whereby the animals usually freely choose their reproductive partners, so that a systematic use of certain performance characteristics does not take place, which may have a long-term negative effect on performance (e.g. calving ease , meat set) or milk yield ) and thus affects the economic value of the existing livestock population.
In many cases, areas with communal livestock farming tend to have a higher population density than areas with commercial livestock farming. At the same time, the infrastructure in communal livestock farming areas is in many cases worse than in areas where livestock is farmed for commercial purposes.
The increasing soil degradation in combination with the often strong population growth has, especially in the direct vicinity of the villages and settlements, e.g. In South Africa, for example, in recent years arable farming has increasingly moved to existing pasture areas and thus increasingly comes into direct competition with pasture husbandry practiced in these regions, which directly endangers the continued existence of this traditional form of livestock husbandry in various regions.
A significant step towards increasing productivity was z. B. was implemented in 2013 in the Zimbabwean province of Matabeleland South , when municipal livestock farmers there, with the help of development aid funds, established a municipal feedlot for the fattening of beef cattle intended for sale. As a result, the slaughter cattle can now be passed on to the meat industry at significantly higher prices due to their significantly better physiological condition at the time of sale .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Luis Pablo Hervé Claude: Evaluation of Strategies on a Farm Animal Census for the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa (2010, English; PDF; 5.2 MB).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Jim Sweet: Livestock - Coping with Drought: Namibia - A Case Study (1998, English).
- ↑ a b c John C Barrett: The economic role of cattle in communal farming systems in Zimbabwe (English; PDF; 96 kB).
- ↑ a b c Where is South Africa heading ?: on My.Telegraph.com.uk ( Memento of the original dated February 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (2010, English).
- ↑ a b c d e f Lepelle-Nkumpi Local Municipality: Goat Meat Production: Feasibility Study ( Memento of the original from November 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (2007, English; PDF; 1.1 MB).
- ↑ a b c Munyaradzi Christopher Marufu on My.Telegraph.com.uk: Prevalence of Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases in Cattle on Communal Rangelands in the Highland Areas of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 413 kB) (2008, English).
- ↑ a b c ME Adams, 1993: Viewpoint: Options for land reform in Namibia. Land Use Policy, July 1993: pp. 191-196 (English).
- ↑ a b Namibian Sun: Overgrazing, bad management hamper livestock farming ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (July 3, 2014, English).
- ↑ a b c Andrew Ainslie, Thembela Kepe and Lungisile Ntsebeza: Cattle ownership and production in the communal areas of the Eastern Cape, South Africa ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (2002, English).
- ↑ a b Peter Mashala for Farmer's Weekly: Communal farming under threat (March 20, 2014, English).
- ↑ Zenzele Ndebele for Farm Radio Weekly: Zimbabwe: Cattle farmers increase profits with communal feedlot ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (November 18, 2013, English).
