High resource-use efficiency of traditional pastoralism in Sudan

Back in 1981, a thesis prepared at the University of New England in Australia “Towards an understanding and evaluation of pastoral production systems in tropical Africa with special reference to Sudan” examined the rationale and productivity of traditional pastoralism as practised by Baggara and Dinka people in Sudan. It compared this to pastoralism in northern Australia in areas with similar climatic conditions and revealed that the traditional pastoral systems produced at least twice as much energy and protein per unit area of land than did the tropical Australian pastoral system. The introduction of capital-intensive and labour-saving beef ranching as practised in northern Australia would lower the total productivity from the ecosystem, and ranching would not be able to support as many people in the drylands as could the traditional pastoral systems. The author concluded that traditional pastoralism was ecologically adapted to the utilisation of the sparse and fluctuating resources in the drylands and managed to achieve high efficiency of resource use through mobility, flexibility and livestock diversity. Rather than trying to improve or replace traditional pastoralism, interventions should focus on supporting the African pastoralists in their own efforts to improve their livelihoods.

Posted on 12 July 2024 in News