Pastoralism supports livelihoods on less productive land across Africa and other parts of the world including people who own or manage pastures for part-year use. The pastoralists match animal forage needs with limited ecological resources based on their knowledge of both the potential and predicted current condition of the surrounding lands. Climate variability including frequent and prolonged droughts shrink grazing lands and make forage availability less predictable. To determine socio-cultural aspects influencing decision making among pastoralists that own or manage land, we analyzed field size expansion trends and income generating activities of two different pastoral communities in Kenya. The fields were divided by size (large or small), ownership/management (communal or private), and landscape position (hills or lowlands). The response variable was the income per hectare. The research analyses data from work done by RAE Trust which has been rehabilitating degraded lands in the area where the research is based. The records were collected through planting forms administered during the field planting exercise. The income is obtained from reviewing intensive monitoring field forms that are filled quarter annually and benefits calculated using current market values.
Results/Conclusions
Based on the analysis of 55 fields, the private fields were 1.5 times more profitable than the communal fields and there was no significant difference between hill and lowlands or between small fields (1 to 19 ha) and large fields (20 to 325 ha). Private fields may be making more benefits than community fields because of the difference in management. Decision making process in the community fields requires the participation of many people and this may take a long time before actions are implemented. In the case of private fields, productivity is subject to individual efforts and management strategies. Private fields were necessitated by community members who were tired of the bureaucracy involved in managing communal enclosures. Ten years into only having community fields, individual farmers reached out to RAE team and requested to have individual parcels of land rehabilitated. Though there is no significant difference between the hills and lowland fields, the land sizes of the private fields in the two regions show the decision-making behavior among the pastoral communities. Those from the lowlands have larger parcel sizes than those from the hills. The income obtained from the field, act as incentives and encourages field owners to expand total land sizes rehabilitated. Sustainable field management can benefit the environment, economy and society.