ABSTRACT

The paper addresses the subject of rangeland/livestock development in the Near East and North Africa in view of the present circumstances of the pastoral communities, status of resource degradation, and lessons learnt from successes and failures. In the past the pastoral communities developed risk aversion strategies to survive in the harsh environment and fragile ecology of rangeland areas. With advances in infrastructure (transport, water points etc.), and improved health, nutritional standards and sanitary measures as well as influx of external inputs (imports, aid, relief) and expansion in crop production, these areas became over populated and the rangelands overgrazed. Most attempts to develop the rangeland livestock sector failed as they addressed the technological problems only without considering the socio-economic factors. Absence of modalities to incorporate ‘scientific’ knowledge into the ‘local knowledge’ and traditions resulted in lack of ‘effective’ interventions. For example, efforts to settle the nomads or to establish some fodder shrubs failed in spite of heavy financial investments. Moreover, high subsidies for feed grain (e.g. barley in Saudi Arabia) influenced herd size and structure (more sheep and fewer camels) and subjected the grazing areas to severe damage and deterioration. The alarming increase in irreversibly degraded areas as a result of poor resource management stimulated an evolving awareness of the need for sustainability in agricultural production. This concept should be adopted by the governments and the national agricultural research institutions in the region. According to recent projections by FAO, the direction of livestock development is towards intensive production with less dependence on free grazing. This trend should be seriously considered particularly in the Near East/North Africa region where there is no available land reserve for horizontal expansion. In this region the human population is expected to continue to increase (from 265 million in 1985 to 387 million in the year 2000). For sustained development of rangeland, specific recommendations were made in this paper.