Impact of the sedentarization of pastoralists on cattle production in Northern Benin

Abstract

Two main cattle farming systems coexist in Donga Basin in Northern Benin: semi-sedentary and mobile livestock farming. This basin, located in the subhumid agroecological zone of West Africa, has undergone two major changes in recent decades: i) an increase in the need for animal products, and ii) the expansion of cropland resulting in reduced access to fodder resources and water, increased herd mobility, and more frequent conflicts between farmers and mobile herders. Faced with these constraints, the public authorities favor the sedentarization of pastoralists. As mobile livestock farming provides young animals to semi-sedentary livestock farming, sedentarization dynamics create uncertainty as to the supply to the region of cattle and beef by semi-sedentary livestock farming, which would become the dominant herding system. To address the growing need for animal products, livestock production was simulated to assess the effects of government incentives to sedentarize mobile herders. Numerical and beef productivities were simulated under different hypotheses to improve the zootechnical performances of semi-sedentary livestock farms. All the scenarios were built on the assumption that the increase in semi-sedentary livestock was directly linked to the sedentarization of some mobile farmers. A simulation obtained using the DYNMOD population projection model suggests that sedentarization of mobile livestock farmers would break local complementarity between livestock systems and lead to a loss of beef production. In addition, none of the improvement scenarios explored would be sufficient to offset the loss of beef production resulting from the sedentarization policy. To maintain beef production by semi-sedentary breeders, regional trade links with livestock farms in Sahelian countries would have to be developed.