Drought Management Policies for Timely Destocking

Pastoralist production systems have always been based on a "tracking" strategy of matching animal numbers to grazing resources, suffering losses during drought and rebuilding herds afterwards. Pastoralist systems, for a combination of reasons including expropriation or individuation of grazing resources, are now more vulnerable to drought and less able to recover post-drought. There has been increasing interest, first of all at the project level and later at the policy level in interventions that will assist timely destocking and subsequent restocking.

Such interventions are primarily motivated by concern for pastoralist welfare. Facilitating or encouraging pastoralists to sell livestock early in the drought cycle will:

- better equip them to survive drought as the terms of trade between livestock and grain prices will not yet have altered too disastrously, and

- will prevent an absolute wastage of livestock that lose condition, become unsaleable and die.

Similarly, the rationale for restocking is mainly to hasten pastoralists' return to self-sufficiency, in some cases secondarily to ensure the maintenance of suitable local breeds against haphazard restocking with exotics and nondescripts.

However, destocking may have:

- a direct but marginal positive environmental impact, as pressure on the range is reduced by (probably only) a small proportion of stock being taken off, and
- an indirect positive environmental impact, in that an integrated policy of assisted destocking and restocking will avoid weakening the traditional pastoral economy relative to absentee herdowners who lack their environmental knowledge and are less subject to traditional resource management systems.

Proven models for destocking and restocking on a truly large scale have not yet emerged. Some points to be noted are as follows:

- direct government or agency intervention is unlikely to be cost-effective, but there are arguments for targetted subsidies within existing private livestock marketing systems
- associating destocking with a credible promise of post-drought restocking may improve its effectiveness
- local level-destocking projects or policies may have little effectiveness if national issues on the marketing and processing of meat (especially poor quality meat) are not tackled
- restocking on a large scale brings problems of sourcing suitable animals, and combining financial integrity with cost-effectiveness in management time.

Related Policy Options

> strengthening local natural resource management

> establishment of pastoral banking systems

Research/Appraisal Methods

As stated above, the direct environmental impact of destocking is likely to be marginal. Its effectiveness as a welfare measure can be assessed by conentional economic techniques, taking account of the value that would have been foregone by pastoralists if livestock prices had dropped further or animals had become unsaleable. PRA and anthropological research can explore links between destocking/restocking, maintaining pastoralist control of rangeland, and environmental indicators.

Key References

Barton, D. and Morton, J. 1999. Livestock Marketing and Drought Mitigation in Northern Kenya. Unpublished paper, NRI.

Behnke, R. and Kerven C. 1994. Redesigning for risk: tracking and buffering environmental variability in Africa's rangelands Natural Resource Perspectives, No.1 http://www.oneworld.org/odi/nrp/1.html

Oxby, C. 1994. Restocking, a Guide. VetAid, Roslin

Toulmin, C. 1994. Tracking through Drought: Options for Destocking and Restocking in I. Scoones (ed.) Living with Uncertainty: New Directions in Pastoral Development in Africa, Intermediate Technology Publications, London.

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