ABSTRACT
Given the number and importance of pastoralists as users of the land, surprisingly little is known about the economics of pastoralism. Many pastoral societies have been studied by social anthropologists, who have provided information on social and political organisation, and livestock marketing is the subject of several economic studies. But the economics of production in traditional pastoral societies in West Africa and elsewhere has been largely ignored. As a result, studies of pastoral social structure are forced to generalise about the economics of pastoral production, and economic development planners are obliged to make hazardous assumptions about how pastoralists will react to incentives, plans and changed circumstances.
