Pastoralism and Land Reform in Rural Botswana R.K. Hitchcock (Ed.) Proceedings of the Symposium on Botswana's First Livestock Development Project and its future implications, National Institute of Research, Gaborone, 1982, pp. iii + 226, P2.50 Until overtaken by the mining industry in the early 1970s agriculture was the largest sector of the Botswana ecorany. Even now this sector still plays a vi tal role since al:;out 80%of the rural households depend on it for their livelihood. This includes a vast numberof the poores t people in the country. This sector also contributes al:;out 35%of the rural incomes and al:;out 20%of the GDP. The livestock sector, especially cattle provides the major source of the rural incomes and is also the largest source of meat and beef products in the country and thus foI11lSa major c0m- ponent in the country s beef e~rt I market. Consequently Botswana's development programnes which place hea"Y enphasis on inproving the lot of rural communities as well as forging self-reliance understandably hiGhliGht agricultural development and particularly Give priority to livestock ilTprovement. The First Livestock Development Project (WP1) is one of the major rural development projects which was initiated and inplenented with "effOrts geared towards increasing beef and karakul production in the semi-arid rangelands of the western part of the country". The project was started with the purpose of making use of the vast range resource of the western Kalahari - an effort that VoOuld at the same time reduce overgrazing around the villages. As Hitchcock puts it "in a sense the project was a land rpfonn effort in which farmers VoOuld be able to gain access to newly opened grazina lands over which they VoOuld have exclusive riahts under leasehold tenure. Overgrazing in the communalareas VoOUld be reduced by rE!1Ovinglarger herds and establishing the comnercial ranches". The pro- ject, in addition to the cattle ranches, iilcluded 24 private sheep farms in the Bokspits, and 9 state run fattening ranches in various parts of the country for demonstration purposes. The project conponents included a package of programnes, such as perime- ter fencing, drilling and equipping J::oreholes, inproved marketinG systans, trek rou tes, tecr:nical surveys etc. Under this package Governmentof Botswana (COB)with loans from IBRDand SIDAconstructed and equipped the faI11lS. Once finished, fanners rroved their livestock in and asstnned loans for the cost of the initial developments. From the onset the project suf- fered from a number of setbacks which were either overlooked or not per- ceived at the initial stage of the project. As a result of these setbacks the project fell far short of achieving its objective cpals. A numberof problans encountered during the inplanentation of this ~roject were well spelt out by N. Odep (1978 and 1980) a SIDAconsultant and Carr (1980) an IBPDconsultant. 95 It was as a follow-up of OQell and Carr's reports (which identifioo prob- lem areas) that a Syrlllosiumon Botswana's First Livestock Develcpnent Project and Its Future Inplications was s~nsored by SIDAand hosted by NIR in 1981. Its main objectives were "to provide guidance for the way forward in livestoak and rural development efforts in Botswana". Partici- pants were called upon to eJlplore the ~ssible lessons learned from the irrplanentation of IDP1. A1:out35 papers in different topics relating to livestock and rural develq>rrent in general were presented by sane profes- sionals and technicians for ciscussion. Participants really addressed thanselves to various issues which vitiated the IDPl and at the same time identified different lessons learned from the project and also made sug- gestions on how future rural development projects soould be directed. Failure of the IDPl was a result of poor planning v.hich aff€Jted a number of significant factors that had been igIX>redfrom the onset. Ecx:>logical factors for instance, are very inportant facets in project planning in a number of ways. The project in this regard failed to oonsider the sig- nificance of biotic factors in an area with large populations of wildlife (especially wildebeest). Mannathoko, Ngwarrotsoko,M::llorroand others d:> ~int out that the project was launched on migration routes of the blue wildebeest. TIle ranch fences were oonstructed without any oorrid:>rs to allow for wildlif€ passage and as a resul t wild animals were oonfined and ooncentra- ted in areas v.here they eventually came into regular oontact with live- stock. '!he wildebeest spread malignant cattarrh fever v.hich inflicted high IlOrtalities on cattle herds. This killer disease has acoounted for 25%of the herd deaths since the establishment of fenced ranches. On the other hand I:oth the wildebeest and fences inflicted heavy danlages on one another resulting in heavy losses in terms of maintenance oosts, and nume- rous deaths of Botswana's wildlife resources which are also the oountry's source of food and revenue. Still on the same eoological zones I:oth wildlife and livestock conpeted for the same resources - grazing and water ending up with the ranches being overgrazed and the killer disease taking its share, thus undermining the spiI;-it of ranching along the fanners aner- ging from the traditional cattle-post system. It has been shown that disturbance of the eoological zone such as siting the "karakul project and the 1000 eJlp€rimental station" mere it is now known that the slightest ooncentration of animals over (on bare sand dunes that daronstrated desertification) a short period of time v.ould quickly overgraze the area leaving it bare and enhancina desertification and deso- lation. It shows short sightedness on the inport.ance of pre-surveys on areas of a fragile nature. It is a big mistake that up to now in a oountry with a fragile envirorurent, there are ro integrated national pro- gramnes designed to oontril:ute to the managementof serious envirorunental problems such as desertification, deforestation, soil erosion etc, mich are of pararrount inportance in land utilisation. It was also observed that the problan of putting fences on migration routes resulting in heavy losses on I:oth sides is rot eJnfences) rail and tarmac roads protection are heavily criticised by the departIrent of Wildlife and Tourism on the ground of damage inflicted on various wildlife species by such fences. Preda- tors enclosed within the fences also inflict a lot of damage to livestock. TIle BLOCranches have learned a lot from such eJlp€riences. 96 Because of these problans, the ~terinary department ended up shooting sorre of the species to the extent of poaching under the pretext of oon- trolling wildlife and protect.i,ng livestock. This is an ilTportant warning that if future prograrrrneswill oontinue to favour fencing, its history will oontinue to be disastrous. Whydo veterinary authorities oontinue to ruild expensive fences for oontrol pur- poses yet a strong vaccine is rt:JW manufactnred locally? Although good argurrents on fencing by the :'/'ilclife Department were advan- ced the paper presented did not: i. give serre guidelines on how and where fences should be erected ii. give alternatives to fencing iii. indicate what the magnitude of damagew:>uldbe on wildlife, humans, traffic, roads and the rail if this infrastructure renained unfenced. iv. indicate whether the vaccine quoted is !lOre of a curative than of a preventative nature. 'Ibe papers on the ecological problems did not cp sufficiently deep into sane of the touchy issues eith~r. 'Ihat v.ould have helped the layman's understanding of the problems. 'Ibey seaned to inply that wildlife migra- tion routes are permanent. They do not state what the determinants of these migration routes are e.g. vater, grazing etc. 'Ibey 00 not state why, the migration routes are not diverted once the wildlife ecological zone is disturbed by man and his livest.ocJ<. Nevertheless it is very interesting to learn that the problans encounter- ed are partly due to lack of consultation between interested parties and also due to the unwillingness to adhere to warnings and advice by the im- plementing ministry (IDA). Closer contact between interested bodies - ~ order to minimise losses - €1X>ugh oonsultation, research and coopera- tion are rt:JW seen as being of pararrount ilTportance in fu Me project plan- ning and inplanentation. In other respects the synposiurn learned that the IDP1 faltered by relying too IlUchon the asst.1l1ptionthat fencing was "not only necessary rut alrrost self-sufficient for good ranch management". 'Ibis approach is a misooncep- tion for it is not fencing and infrastructure development alone that bring al::out successes in livestock managanent. Factors such as extension services, and other inportant socia-cultural activities affecting produc- ti vi ty are very crucial in ranch managanent procedures. Slow changes in inproved animal husbandry, range oonservation etc., have been experienced by the project. No evidence exists so far that the ooncerted efforts by authorities to ensure that the recorrroendedstodrted by the findings of Hubbard ~d t1x>seof the University of Edinlurgh Ellp€dition to Botswana 1971-72 . Bekure on the other hand, after re-analysing the 1979 resul ts of the m;nu Annual R€p?rt, ~ out With,the results that a "cattlepoH opera- t~on was nore f~nanc~ally attractive than a comnercial ranch". For a comuercial ranch to be a profitable venture,. a few conditions should be met and at the same time occurrences of severe or prolonged droughts should be borne in mind. Managementthat is capable of instituting inpro- ved cattle husbandry, range managementover the prevailing systan are very necessary conditions. A ranch herd size large enough to take advantage of opp:>rtunities for attaining high production levels afforded by inproved ranch infrastructure and managementis required. An argurrent for the plared gradual developrrent of ranches with l.irnited capital expenditure as opp:>sed to the turnkey ranching system is prop:>sed. Irrproved finan- cial awareness, technical proficiency of the rancher, and the training of ranchers are given as factors that canoot be igrx:>redin ranching pro- ductivity. A number of papers on this aspect, of the econ::mic productivity of the ranching system, call for the avoidance of some economic projections in livestod<. development projects 1r.hichtend to be too optimistic. Such pro- jectio~ ssibility of drought induced shor- tages. For instance during drought, ranch herd numbers drop and it takes several years for them to recover. Lack of pre-surveys on factors such as norbidity and rrortality prevalences, alternative production rrotives in the same ecological zone e.g. rroving relatively from pelt production to neat or Y.OOI production due to COll1l1UI1ication and rrarketing constraints, highly affect the profitability of the ranching systan. There is, therefore a call for' realistic production rcodels 1r.hichtake into account the risks that may be inflicted on the project by such hazards. Apart from the killer disease, rone of the papers presented ever men- tioned 1r.hether the economic prof itabili ty of the LOP1was affected either by f~ or drought outbreaks or rot. SOme of the papers 15 addressed themselves to the socia-economic con- sequences of the enclosure systan over land that historically, sane people had had access to (as aJl1m]J1a1). Policies such as the 'IGLP are now seen as l.irniting the future access of tribesmen and subsequent generations. The rights and roles of conmercial ranches in the camv.mal areas are now subject to questioning. In this respect Kjaer-{)lsen cites as an exarple, the attitudes of the Ncojane villagers towards the 25 LOP1ranches, and also looks at the social inplications of the project and lessons to be learned for the TGLP. At the start of the project, there were some aspirations amongthe villagers that the ranches VX)uldprovide an ans~r to nost of tiEir livestock proD- lens Le. water, grazing and straying. But eventually villagers became frustrated 1r.henthey realised that the ranches were also allocated to outsiders v.hile a number of local problems remained unsolved. Group ran- ching for exant>le was not acc:arcx]ated, and the ranches did rot reduce pressure on the C011ll1IJI1alareas. The withdrawal of large herds fran the a:mr mmal areas is seen as having negative effects on the nafisa system - for milk and draught power. 99 Arguments for the mafisa systan are developed by Hitcha:x:J< and Othe1S~ spell" out \<.hatthe"""COii'S"equences loOuldbe in "cases \d1ere people tied in too COlplex neu..orks of relationships in Mlim gcxxls and services are exchanged" when qisturbed. It is observed that when this crucial systan is rerroved sane negative inpacts particularly on the poor will be exper- ienced. '!hey will lose an inportant source of subsistence and incx:xne. It is suggested that in future, develqxnent should be focussed on the villages as ¥lell. Village based projects like the VADP(1975) are seen as counter-balancing efforts, l:ut their shortcanings are that they pro- vide area infrastructrre and have little inpact in the creation of in- canes and enployment. FUrther points are raised that although the IDP1 "has suffered fran being sillultaneously a pilot transformation of land tenure and managenent and a major project in a rerrote and isolated area" the1~deas behind the 'lGLP are the same as those that proopted the IDP1. '!his is a clear sign of short-sightedness on the part of project planners for this inde- finite continuation of zoning land for ccmnercial ranching as the pri- mary focus for develq:ment, will result in the dispossession of sub- stantial resident populations of large land resources. People will be forced to IlOve into the conm..mal areas with sizeable herds, resulting in the TGLPamieving the opposite of \\hat it was set out to 00. SUch negative inpacts will include increases in stock numbers in the CXJIlIlUI1aIareas, and exacerbate the problan of overgrazing and low levels of production. One question that needs to be answered in this connection (whim perhaps the presenters overlooked) is, if they are 1o\Orriedthat the rEllOval of large herds from the corcmmal areas to the corcmercial ranches will have negative effects on the mafisa systan, and at the same time they are 1o\Orriedthat the fenced ranching systan will force large numbers of cattle into the ccmmnal areas, !xlw 00 they sinply conclude that the mafisa system will be affected negatively yet there will still be IlOrearid IlOre cattle IlOving into the COIlIl'UrlaI areas? Are very large herd owners the IlOst generous peq:>le ~ offer the mafisa? '!his may on close examination turn out rot to be the fact for large stock owners may in fact be so profit minded as to resent the systan since it reduces the productivity of their inproved herds. Perhaps a large number of mediumherds size will still be in the comnercial areas and the systan may rot be negative- ly affected as people see it now. Perhaps IlOre mafisa 1o\OU1d be offered once the cattle are within easy ream. '!his needS1()be explored further by analysts. There are a number of papers which are IlOre of a general nature and sane of \<.hichaddress thanselves towards rural develqxnent in SCJlle'what broader perspective. loDst of these papers call for a re-direction of future develqxnent plans that should focus IlOre attention on carm.mal area deve- lqxnent where the poor majority live. Sum papers drew the attention of participants to the fact that, past develcpnent progranmes benefitted the better off and IlOre progressive fanners to the general disadvantage of the poor in adjoining cx:mmmalareas. '!hese papers therefore call for a clear understanding of the target groups as a necessity for guiding pro- jects ducing their planning and inplenentation stages so that inequali- ties in incane distril:ution 00 rot develq:> and social justice is rot arosed. They see projects like the IDP1 as merely encouraging the use of 100 cattle for meat production only and thus reduce the use of cattle as draught power and this results in serious inplications for the resource poor OOuseholds. They therefore draw the attention to the fact that a thorough knowledge or understanding of the conplete picture of amm.mal cattle managanent and particularly the other functions of cattle in addition to beef pro- duction, - namely, draught power, milk, hides etc. as very essential. Lightfoot suggests that "alternatives for achieving household self-suf- ficiency in food production can be achieved through inportant linkages between livestock and crop pro0uctj on." A call for development strategies that will include small farmers and non-stockholders in projects orientated to rerrote areas with loan SChEWE'S attached is amde so as to achieve development goals. CFDAsare seen as inportant prograrrmes in these forums. J. Hope calls for the s trengthen- ing of local institutions in the conmmal areas for the ~th success of ccrnnunalprojects v.hich attract group participation." Factors such as wanagernentcorrmittees, and effective leadership with clearly stated objectives are seen as very crucial. Adequate organisational support, and vigorous extension service are also of paranount inportance. Lack of participa lion by the kgotla councillors and MPsis seen as a drawback to rural development projects. In conclusion the s~sium itself was a success. The partli::ipants tried to identify some areas of concern for future developmentprogramnes. It is of particular interest to note howparticipants placed so nuch errpha- sis on the need to re-direct future development programnes so as to favour the COllI11Unal areas in particular. From WP1 it has been learned that other livestock raising systaTis (e.g. cattlepost) are as inportant in the developrrent process as the cornnercial ranching systems and so should neither be overlooked nor underestimated in their production po- tential. It has also been observed that the livestoCk industry alone, cannot cater for or account for overall development in the rural areas in spite of the fact that it is the oominant sector in the process of rural developrrent. A numberof rural projects sane of v.hich can be link- ed with this sector (e.g. cropping system) are also noted as very inpor- tant in meeting the country's objective development goals. Proposals for the participation and strengthening of individuals, small farmers, non-stockholders, rerrote area dwellers, local institutions etc. in com- nunal area developrrent is also seen as another major step forward in the developrrent process. In planning their development programnes policy-makers and planners will therefore learn a lot from the conclusions drawn fran syrtllOsia of this nature. They can use these conclusions as guidance for future develop- ment prograrrmes. One observation to note is that all the papers presented at the syrtllOsium were prepared and delivered by professionals and technicians. As such, the papers were in a jargon intelligible mainly to persons v.ho form part of such groups. The absence of any participation by the laymen was strik- ing. The sYJlllOsium failed to include anong its presenters anyone fran either the affected ranches, or fran the adjacent villages, local insti- tutions, say, chiefjheadman, councillor, VDCetc. to state their case in the laymen's language. This emission overshaOOwsthe later recx:mnenda- 101 tion made by the participants that in future the inclusion of a cross- section of various village or OO1TIl1l.lI'lal area groups in the planning and ircplerentation of developnent programnes should be taken as paranount, yet the very synposium itself failed to meet this obligation. Footrotes 1. Odell, Marcia L. Botswana's First Livestock DevelCJF!ll61t Pro~ect: An E>lperiIrent in Agricultural Transfonnation, GaOOrone, 198 , SIDA & Q)vernrrent Printer 2. Carr, S. Botswana Livestock Develqxnent Project (Credit 325-BT) Can- pletion Report. Washington D.C. 1980. World Bank. -- 3. See chapters by M.M. Mannathoko, "Aninal Health Irrplications of Botswana's First Livestock Develqxnent Project"; K.T. Ngwarrotsoko "Lessons for Future Livestock Developnent Projects in Botswana: Wild- life Resources Considerations"; 1. IDlaro, "Problems in the Ncojane Ranches. " 4. For exanple those chapters by Ngwarrotsoko, op.cit G. Seitshiro, "Range Ecology in Western Botswana", and R. Kwerepe, "'Ihe Ecological Inplication of Ranch Establishrtent." 5. Chapter by Paul Devitt, "Some Themes in Livestock Developnent Projects. " 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Odell, op.cit. 9. See chapter by R. Benkhe, "Closing the Gap: A Revaluation of the APRU Studies of Cattlepost and Ranch Productivity"; S. Bekure, "The Ecoranics of COITInercialRanching"; M. Hubbard, "The 1979 and 1980 Agricultural statistics"; R. White, "Ranch DevelCJF!ll61tand Land Use Planning in Western Botswana." 10. Benkhe, op.cit 11. Ibid. 12. M. Hubbard, q>.c~t. See also results of University of Edinburcj1 Veterinary Expedition to Botswana 1971-72 cited in Benkhe op.cit p.81. 13. See Bekure, op.cit. 14. See chapter by R. 'IUrner, "Droucj1t Risk in the Early St;ages of a 'IGLP Ranch". 15. For exanple M. Marquart, "Land Tenure and Livestock Developnent." 16. Hitchcock, R. "NewDirections in Livestock Develqxnent in Botswana." 102 17. Hope, J. "Group Develofroel1t Efforts in Central District". N. T. /oORAPEDI National Instimte of Develofroel1t Research & Documentation University of Botswana 103