Year of publication 1998

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Author PETER ORAM;Animal Production and Health Division

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Product type Book (stand-alone)

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Edition 1

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Synopsis (short abstract) The paper reviews the dynamics of change in the WANA region over the last forty years, with a particular focus on their impact on agricultural policy, the livestock sector, and the environment in the Mashreq and Maghreb (M&M) countries of the region, for which recent information is available from an ongoing project. This project, which is supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), involves two intern ational research centers - the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in close collaboration with national biological and social scientists from those eight countries. 1 Its principal goal is to find ways of reconciling growth, poverty alleviation, and sustainable natural resource management in the low rainfall farming areas of those countries with mean annual precipitation (MAP) below 400 mm, the ste ppe rangelands with MAP below 200 mm, and the upland watersheds. These zones which cover a huge area, including a significant share of the arable land, and virtually all of the natural grazings in those countries (Table 1), are at high risk from climatic hazards, and represent the main locus of rural poverty. Livestock, particularly small ruminants, have a pivotal social and economic role in land use, farming systems, and employment there, and are the mainstay of family income and savings f rom agriculture. Livestock also contribute significantly to the national economies, representing between 30 percent and 35 percent of agricultural GDP in the eight countries. Nevertheless, their governments, faced with large food and feed imports to meet the needs of rapidly growing populations, have given priority in research and investment policies to the higher rainfall areas, and particularly to the expansion of irrigation. Support to agriculture in the low rainfall areas has been mainl y aimed at mitigating the impact on the ruminant livestock sector of the frequent droughts which are endemic to the dominant semi-arid winter rainfall Mediterranean climate there. These drought relief policies, which have been largely of an ad hoc reactive nature, have created social and economic dependencies among people in the low rainfall areas; which are proving financially costly to governments, and difficult to escape from. Together with broader sector and national policies, they have encouraged escalation of animal numbers and had perverse effects on the natural environment. This paper reviews the factors which have created this situation, and suggests measures to restore sustainable management of livestock based farming systems in these low rainfall environments, while alleviating poverty.

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Language English

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