Land and Respect

Nathani from the NGO Saahjeevan, Salimbhai of the Banni buffalo breeders, Bikhabhai of the Rebari camel breeders, Hanwant Singh of LPPS and Dailibai Raika, community leader from Rajasthan, discuss the future of livestock keeping at a recent Seminar on “Green and equitable livestock development in India”. Will their holistic traditional knowledge about the balance between people, livestock and land be respected and taken serious by policy makers?

“Physically we are fine, but our minds are uneasy and disturbed” explains Salimbhai, a Banni buffalo breeder from Gujarat (India) and goes on “we don’t know what the future of our animals will be when we our grazing areas are taken away. It is all a question of access to land whether our animals and we will survive.” He is referring to his community’s ancient resource base, the Banni that is known as Asia’s second largest grassland. It has turned into a hotly contested area which the Forest department is fencing in and subdividing for the purpose of “conservation”. Bhikabhai Rebari, a camel breeding colleague from the same area gently shakes his head “Yes, it’s a big problem – I don’t know how we can continue keeping livestock under these circumstances.”

“The forest needs us to thrive” emphasizes Dailibai Raika from Rajasthan, a seasoned campaigner for Livestock Keepers’ Rights who has travelled the world to speak up on behalf of her community. “Our sheep are essential to keep the grass short, preventing forest fires. By eating fallen leaves, they keep the termites in the forest under control. Our livestock helps the forest to recover as tree seeds that have passed through their stomachs germinate much easier and faster. And our community has protected the forest from poachers and loggers – our mere presence keeps them at bay.” Dailibai lives at the edge of the Kumbhalgarh Sanctuary which is slotted to become a National Park, a development that instills fear into the hearts of the local livestock keepers.

“We need to ensure a balance between land used for crops and land available to livestock. In Maharashtra so much land has been taken over by sugar cane cultivation, there is no more place for livestock. And once livestock is gone, farmers become prone to suicides” pleads Nilkanth Kuruba whose community breeds the famous black Deccani sheep.

At a seminar that the LIFE Network organised on 13th April in Hyderabad (India) the representatives of India’s pastoralist communities expressed both deep worries as well as profound wisdom. With their immense experience, they can provide valuable guidance on how to get livestock development onto a sustainable path – an issue that international agencies are increasingly concerned about. But for that their knowledge needs to be respected and their voices to be heard. This is also the task that the LIFE Network India that was constituted on the next day has set itself. As a collaborative effort between NGOs working on livestock and local breeds, herders’ associations and a small group of supporting scientists, this is an immensely important goal. The proceedings of the meeting will be shared here shortly.

Participants of the LIFE Network Seminar – representing NGOs, livestock keepers and concerned scientists.

What kind of research helps small-scale livestock keepers?

Camels have tremendous potential for improving food and nutritional security, especially in times of climate change. But how can this potential be leveraged? Most camel research has been conducted from the perspective of the rich Gulf countries, but there has hardly been a stab at helping poor livestock keepers in countries such as India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran getting their products to the market and investigating the necessary technologies. Research into small cooling units for camel milk in the field would be sorely needed.

“Better lives through livestock” is the motto of ILRI, the International Livestock Rsearch Institute which recently brought out its second 10 Year Strategy for the period from 2013-2022. This new strategy is much superior to the previous one, as it encompasses a wider range of goals, including food and nutritional security and acknowledges that livestock can also have negative consequences. However, an important angle is missing and that is the question of how this is going to be achieved. What kind of research is necessary to actually addresses this issue?

Lets face it, livestock research in general is rarely conducted from the perspective of supporting small-scale livestock keepers and ecologically sustainable decentralised ways of keeping farm animals. Most of it has been oriented towards increasing quantities of product – more milk, faster meat – in the belief that this would automatically raise poor livestock keepers’ income. Well, this may true in some cases, but in many instances it is not, because the “genetically improved” animals that go along with this approach usually do not perform in the setting in which poor livestock keepers operate. They require inputs in terms of feed and medicine which need to be purchased and which often are not available or draw the farmer into a debt trap, as is indicated in the research study by my colleague Evelyn Mathias entitled “Livestock out of balance. From asset to liability in the course of
the Livestock Revolution“.

In my experience, research should take its cues from the problems as they are experienced by livestock keepers themselves. And these are almost always the same: insecure access rights to land and lack of veterinary services. I have never heard a livestock keeper complain that his or her animals are not productive enough. But I have seen how excited they get when they realise the marketing potential of their animals, as the camel breeders in Rajasthan when they experienced new camel products such as camel ice cream, fashionable camel wool products or even camel dung paper.

Raika camel herder with a notebook crafted out of paper made from camel poo. Probably not the most relevant product for solving the world’s problems, but illustrative of the range of products that is possible.

But sorry, because of my enthusiasm for the camel, I am getting diverted from the mainpoint that I am trying to make: In order to identify research that really helps poor livestock keepers, a dialogue has to be initiated with them to identify their real needs and priorities. For too long, livestock research has been conducted top-down for scientific merit only and based on the wrong assumptions, equating higher output with better income. What we now need is a platform and a process that enables this kind of participatory and bottom-up approach – an approach that reflects consideration of one of the Livestock Keepers’ Rights – “Livestock Keepers shall have the right to participate in the identification of research needs and research design with respect to their genetic resources, as is mandated by the principle of Prior Informed Consent.”

It would really be great if ILRI (and of course all other research institutes working on livestock) looked into establishing such a platform for the interaction between scientists and livestock keepers that will undoubtedy make research more meaningful, targeted and likely to reach its vision of a world where all people have access to enough food and livelihood options to fulfil their potential. We at LPP and the LIFE Network are certainly ready for this!

Towards green and equitable livestock development in India

What do livestock keepers have to say about the future of livestock keeping? At an upcoming seminar in Hyderabad, Nilkanth Mama, leader of thousands of Kuruba shepherds will report about his experiences at the Third Multi-stakeholder Platform towards sustainable livestock sector development that was held in Nairobi in January.

LPP and its partners will organise a Seminar entitled “Towards green and equitable livestock development” in Hyderabad on 13th April. The programme will also include presentations of the exciting results of the Ark-project which indicate that one of the main benefits of keeping indigenous breeds is that their products have a higher nutrient content than those of stall-fed animals. And many other interesting presentations, as well as space for discussion!

Eco-livestock keepers – living the good life

A picture says more than a thousand words……as I have been raving so much about the benefits (and beauty) of livestock keeping as practiced by Rajasthan’s Raika pastoralists, I’ll just share some images from our last visit to our dang, the group of mobile shepherds that we are following in regular intervals throughout the year.

At the crack of dawn, the sheep flocks go on their first round of grazing.

While they are out, the women start preparing for breakfast.

The goats, kept mostly to provide extra milk to lambs, are herded separately.

Badl, 5 years old and currently the youngest member of the dang, has just woken up.

Preparations for making butter from the sheep milk that was collected at night

Manju poses with her friends.

Mobile dairy: churning butter from last night’s milk.

Badl says good morning to the other kids on the block.

By the time water has been fetched from a distant well, the sheep flocks have returned.

Time for more milking.

Some high yielding does get are hand-fed to keep them in the peak of their health and production.

All animals are given a regular check-up to note any possible problems – here hooves are checked for thorns.

When the animals are taken care of, there is time for personal care also.

The patel is giving instructions to the group, as he is going to Delhi to receive a national award.

Low carbon livestock

A migratory sheepflock of about 4500 head in Southern Rajasthan

5th February, 2013, along the Udaipur-Chittorgarh highway (in Rajasthan/India), the late afternoon sun bathing everything in mellow light. Dharmabhai, the patel (leader) of his dang (herding group) is directing us to his encampment, tucked in just a few hundred meters away from the highway. There is the familiar sight of seven charpoys laid out in a square on a harvested guar (cluster bean) field. Each charpoy (string bed) signifies a nuclear family and is piled high with bedding and blankets, while cooking equipment and staple foods are stored underneath.

Tying up the lambs in loops

In the shelter of this mobile furniture, the women have set up their temporary hearths, fashioned out of broken buckets or odhis (large metal bowls, used for washing clothes, feeding animals, etc.). Freshly collected firewood is stacked neatly nearby. Rows of goat kids and sheep lambs are tied up with loops around their neck, some of them have escaped and are frolicking around. A few steps away, under the canopy of some Acacia trees, the 13 donkeys of the dang are milling around. Seven camels are hobbled on another flank of the encampment.
We drink tea, banter, exchange news with the women, children and some elder men. Everything has been well since our last visit about a month ago. No major mishaps, although everybody is nursing a cold, due to the exceptionally chilly weather this year. But the group has entered the territory of the Kanjar community that is known for thieving and other mischievous activities. In fact they were robbed by the Kanjars on this very spot a year ago. So there is a bit of nervousness, but nobody seems to be overly concerned. Around sunset, the goats belonging to the dang return and settle down. But by the time the seven main sheep flocks return, it is already dark. When they approach a choir of bleating sets off, as ewes and lambs are calling out to each other. “Here I am, here I am, where are you?” trying to locate each other. In a crowd of around 4000 sheep it is difficult to find each other, so the shepherds carry around lambs under their arms to match them with their respective mothers. In the shine of their torches, the sheep are reduced to a sea of eyes blinking at us in the dark like headlights.

Matching returning ewes with their lambs in the shine of torches

After about an hour, the cacophony has ebbed out, as all lambs are united with their mothers and contentedly suckle away. Under a sea of stars, the shepherds assemble around a small fire. We are joined by the owner of the land who has brought tea leaves and sugar. He is still a young man with 100 bighas of land (“lots of land, but no water”) and highly appreciative of the shepherds, noting that the manure of their sheep would result in a bumper harvest of 14 bori (sacks) of guar. When I ask him how he would fertilize if there were no shepherds, he answers that he then would use the manure produced by his own buffaloes. But that would only result in 10-11 bori of guar, because buffalo ate grass while the sheep and goats were consuming shrubs and leaf fodder which rendered their manure much more efficient and long-lasting. And what about chemical fertilizer? He shakes his head in disagreement. “That would be much too expensive. And anyway, it turns the soil sterile and salty (”kharak”) after some time.
The conversation shifts to other issues. Hanwant shows the shepherds the film “The story of the Weeping Camel” about their pastoralist colleagues in Mongolia. They are fascinated and realize the enormous similarities with the Mongolian herders, despite the cultural and geographic distance.

Watching the “Story of the Weeping Camel” with the shepherds

And I am left to pondering. On our last visit we had been impressed how this dang – representative of many other migratory shepherds in Rajasthan and all over India – was basically producing food out of nothing, and without any carbon expenditure just by managing their sheep and goats to feed on harvested fields and surrounding trees and shrubs. This time, we have understood an additional aspect: the enormous significance of their system in reducing the need for chemical fertilizer. This is not just of benefit for the farmer who saves money, and the consumer, who obtains better tasting, “organic” food, but also to the climate. For fertilizer production is one of the most intensive greenhouse gas emitting activities that we know of.
Now, realising that these shepherds – and tens or hundreds of thousands more of them throughout India – are not only producing food without any fertilizer, but also enabling farmers to save fertilizer, shouldn’t there be a system for them to get carbon credits? And shouldn’t this function of nomadic sheep pastoralism be considered in the discussions about how to make livestock sustainable and lessen its environmental impact? Are any scientists up to calculating the green house gases saved by mobile pastoralists?

So what’s the future role of small-scale livestock-keepers in food production?

Pastoralist leaders Neelkanth “Mama” Kurbar  from LIFE Network India and Adam Ole Mwarabu from the LIFE Network in Tanzania look down into the Rift Valley at the side-lines of the Third Multi-stakeholder Platform of the GAA (Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development) recently held in Nairobi.

The future of livestock keeping will have to revolve around finding a balance between economy and ecology. Economically it might make sense to crowd huge numbers of animals in small spaces and automate their feeding and management but this runs counter to all ecological principles: it requires huge amounts of fossil fuels (to grow and transport feed, to climatize stables), it results in accumulations of manure that become difficult or impossible to dispose of (turning dung from a much sought after asset into a liability and threat to the environment), it raises disease pressure (so that routine use of antibiotics becomes essential), and it is problematic from the animal welfare angle. It’s also not good for livelihoods – studies from various countries where the Livestock Revolution has taken hold testify that it results in depopulated rural areas.

Ecologically, decentralised models of livestock keeping as epitomized by pastoralists are much more preferable. They are based on the optimal utilization of locally available biomass and independent of fossil fuels, manure recycling is integrated into the system, disease pressure is small, and animal welfare is almost solved optimally. So why not support these, if we are concerned about the sustainability of the livestock sector?
“But young people don’t want to do this work and prefer to live in the cities” is the argument that is always raised when one suggests that small-scale livestock keeping may be an answer to the sustainability question. There is certainly some truth in it. Many young people are attracted by the urban life, and – by all means – they should be given a chance to go for it. But there are also many youths who find a life taking care of animals preferable to slogging away at menial jobs and a life in slums. So why not encourage these young people, by giving them respect and support, instead of branding them as backward? By directing subsidies towards these ecological livestock production systems instead of the industrialised ones? By building another livestock development paradigm that takes into account the ecological externalities, instead of always comparing the milk yields of the Indian cow with the Israeli cow and automatically concluding that the second one is so much superior?

According to a remarkable presentation by ILRI’s director Jimmy Smith during the third Multi-stakeholder platform meeting of the Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development (GAA), 80% of livestock derived food is still contributed by small producers. If we focus on raising the performance of these systems – for instance through adequate animal health care – and providing incentives for the young generation, then we can solve the livestock sector sustainability question. And we will help address another burning issue – the high unemployment rates that bedevil not only developing countries, but also Europe and the USA – as well.

Livestock keepers at the GAA

LIFE Network’s Elizabeth Katushabe (Ankole long-horn breeder from Uganda), “Mama” Nilkanth (Deccani shepherd from India) and Raziq Kakar (SAVES, Pakistan), share a panel with other participants. (Sorry for the quality of the photo…. more news from the Third Multi-stakeholder Platform on sustainable livestock will follow…)