Livestock keepers – Livestock Futures

23. April 2018

Community Protocols: “Giving livestock back its soul”

Workshop participants visit a flock of Red Maasai sheep and learn about the problems that their lady owner faces.

Recently I had the pleasure and privilege to participate in, and co-moderate, with my old friend Dr. Jacob Wanyama a workshop entitled “Making Access and Benefit-Sharing work for Africa’s Animal Genetic Resources”. It was organized by the African Union’s Interregional Bureau of Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) in Kenya and attended by about 40 participants drawn from three different groups: National Coordinators for Animal Genetic Resources, National Focal Points for Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) and leaders of breeders’ organizations.

The purpose of the workshop was to develop a roadmap for establishing Biocultural Community Protocols for six African transboundary breeds, Red Maasai sheep, Dorper sheep, Muturu cattle, Azawak cattle, Kuri cattle, and the D’Man sheep.

An important part of the workshop was to inform about the rationale for Livestock Keepers’ Rights, a concept developed by civil society in the run up to the First International Conference on Animal Genetic Resources held in Interlaken in 2007, more than 10 years ago.

The second major aim was to learn how to develop Community Protocols, also known as Biocultural Protocols (BCPs). Community Protocols are a tool enshrined in the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to ensure that benefits from genetic resources trickle down to the communities who have created and steward them. They are supposed to reflect and put on record the perceptions, traditional knowlede and preferences of the community in its own words. Therefore they are entirely different from the “breed descriptors” that AnGR experts are familiar with. To get this deviation from the “scientific” approach across is not that easy, but I was extremely gratified when a lady herder from Tchad expressed her takeaway as “Community protocols are about putting the soul back into livestock”. I think that was beautifully put!

The table below spells out some of the differences between a Community Protocol and a Breed Descriptor.

Difference between Community Protocol and Breed Descriptor

	Breed Descriptor	Community Protocol
*What is documented ?*	A breed	A biodiverse production system, including people/culture, livestock, environment
Focus is on	Physical and production characteristics	Traditional knowledge about breeding and biological diversity of feed/forage and medicinal plants
Type of documentation	Measurements of body parts and production outputs, usually under controlled (research institute or government farm) conditions	Perceptions about special characteristics of the breed, its value compared to other breeds, folklore, local stories
Who documents?	Scientist/Geneticist	Community, possibly facilitated by NGO
Purpose	To obtain scientific description and record of a country’s animal genetic resources	To claim community ownership over a breed and identify/put on record the pressures on a breed and the prerequisites for its conservation and continued sustainable use.
Relevance to Access and Benefit-Sharing	none	yes
Description of threats and opportunities	no	yes
Information about conservation needs	no	yes

Keeping livestock these days is a challenging task that requires passion in order to hang on to it instead of looking for an alternative livelihood. That was again beautifully illustrated on the last day of the workshop when we went on a fieldtrip to visit a Maasai lady keeping a flock of several hundred almost totally pure Red Maasai sheep. She shared her trials and tribulations with us. Her biggest problem was theft: sometimes gangs would drive up in SUVs and stuff as many sheep as they could into them. Another threat was from leopards who would sometimes go on a rampage among the flock. But throughout the dialogue with her what really shone through was her love and passion for her animals. Each of them had a name. Like all good pastoralists she knew exactly how each animal was related to any other in the flock. This was incomprehensible to some of the scientists who urged her to keep written records.

All in all, it is encouraging that AU-IBAR has adopted the BCP idea. So glad that Africa is taking the global lead in this! But Argentina is also gearing up, as you will see in an upcoming interview with Dra Maria Rosa Lanari who is the agrobiodiversity coordinator of INTA, Argentina’s agricultural research institute.

1. September 2014

Something radical…but right!

Pastoralists - like this Kuruba shepherd from India - know how to combine food production and care for the environment. We should learn from them! And support their "Livestock Keepers' Rights" — Pastoralists – like this Kuruba shepherd from India – know how to combine food production and care for the environment. We should learn from them! And support their “Livestock Keepers’ Rights”

I’ve just gotten off the phone with Guenther Czerkus, a good friend who is not only a board member of LPP, but also a leader of the German professional shepherds’ association.

He told me about a promotional film the shepherd’s association had made about their role in landscape conservation (which is how most German shepherds earn their income – being paid for the environmental services they perform) and about the problems they face.

“We pastoralists are the only ones who actually produce food WHILE also caring for the environment. We are AGRO-ECOLOGICAL SERVICE PROVIDERS” he said.

And I could not agree with him more! This morning I had submitted a somewhat lengthy write-up to the NGO Cluster of GASL, the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock, trying to explain why “Livestock Keepers’ Rights” are relevant to GASL. I made the rather laborious and long-winded argument that locally adapted breeds are necessary for the utilization of marginal areas and producing food based on local biomass, rather than soybeans and other concentrates. That more support for such modes of livestock production would lessen the world’s dependence on industrial production and thereby be better for the environment, as well as for livelihoods. That Livestock Keepers’ Rights, a concept born out of the Interlaken process leading to the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources, would help create a somewhat more level playing field for such “agro-ecological service providers” and thereby could help achieve some of GASL’s goals.

But Guenther expressed the whole complex issue so much more succinctly: Yes, if we are seeking to answer the question of how to make the livestock sector more sustainable, than the answer is “Support Pastoralism!”.

How I wish that the pastoralists of India would have similar self-confidence and pride! Not only of India, but all over the world, of course. But its Indian pastoralists that are on my mind currently, in light of the proposed law to ban use of the camel for meat, and even forbid moving it across state borders, or castrating male camels – a legislation that will deal a severe blow to the Raika and other camel pastoralists – who really don’t like selling camels for meat either, but don’t have much of an option these days.

If you feel like it, please sign the petition of LPP’s partner organisation Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan at http://www.change.org/p/vasundhra-raje-save-the-camels-of-rajasthan-stop-the-bill-that-will-undermine-pastoralist-livelihoods

and maybe also join GASL by contacting Livestock-dialogue@fao.org

28. July 2014

How can you make the camel state animal without asking your livestock keepers how to protect it?

Quo vadis, camel of Rajasthan? Will it be good to be "state animal"? — Quo vadis, camel of Rajasthan? Will it be good to be “state animal”?

Ever since the government of Rajasthan has decided to make the camel state animal, the phones have been ringing non-stop. Its mostly journalists that want to get some insight information or opinion on this issue, or even enquire “what is the latest scandal concerning the camel, madam?”. Confusion is reigning supremely, as nobody seems to know what it means for the camel to be state animal. Is it going to be given the same protection as the peacock (India’s national bird) or the chinkara gazelle and black bucks whose hunting is severely punished with jail ? Or is it to get a status equivalent to that of the cow whose slaughter and trafficking across state borders is strictly prohibited? According to the media, the government is preparing just such an act, but nobody really seems to know the details – it is kept under tight wraps and everybody is guessing, including the people who are in the centre of this hullabaloo and on whose continued involvement everything depends: the camel breeders themselves.

The camel breeders are not amused. Not surprising with some headlines announcing that “camel safaris are likely to end“because of their animal now being “protected”.

“If the camel is state animal, this means that we are no longer the owners of our camels and that the government has appropriated them” is the fear of Amanaram, a well informed member of the camel breeding community who brings out a newspaper (Dewasi shreejayte) for his people. He had recently participated in a ‘dharna’ (sit in) staged by the Raika outside the Legislative Assembly in Jaipur to voice their concerns.

Amanaram Dewasi from the traditional Raika camel breeding community is wondering what it means if the camel becomes 'state animal'. — Amanaram Dewasi from the traditional Raika camel breeding community is wondering what it means if the camel becomes ‘state animal’.

While I assured him this would not be the case, I also remembered a newspaper article earlier this year, stating that the government was planning to patent camel milk, and nobody else would be able to sell it.

What a strange and weird idea! For one, camel milk as a natural product is not patentable. And even if it was, whom would it benefit if only the government could sell camel milk? It would be the final death knell for the camel in Rajasthan if the camel breeders could not even sell the milk of their camels. For this is where the future lies: only if a camel milk market is developed, will the camel survive outside zoos.

So far the details of the planned legislation have not been discussed in the current session of the Legislative Assembly, although this was expected. The government of Rajasthan now seems to be grappling with the question of what steps to take. Notably, it has not made any attempt to reach out to the camel breeders themselves and appears to depend for its advice on some bureaucrats sitting in Jaipur who have never gone near a camel, nor have an inkling about the problems of camel breeders.

Last week, representatives of Rajasthan’s two camel breeders’ associations and Hanwant Singh from Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS) met with MLAs and made their suggestions on how to go about saving the camel. They met with much positive response. You can read the letter written to the Chief Minister by the camel breeders and by LPPS here.

I sincerely hope that this letter will be heeded – for everybody’s benefit – the camels’, their keepers’, the public and the government itself.

Earlier this

16. June 2013

Are livestock keepers part of the private sector?

Milking Ankole cattle — Should these Ankole longhorn cattle breeders from Uganda be classified as “private sector”?

This is a question that we will have to give some thought if we want to arrive at fair and equitable livestock development. Most people that are involved in international policy processes seem to think small-scale livestock keepers are “private sector” – this appeared to be the consensus of the participants of the recent 14th IADG (Inter-Agency Donor Group) meeting held in Berlin from 22-24th May. The same stand is taken by the GAA (Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development) which does not regard livestock keepers as a separate stakeholder group and subsumes them under “private sector”.

And, of course, on one level, small-scale livestock keepers, such as the milk producers from Uganda pictured above, are “private sector”: producing meat and milk for their own benefit and profit, they are definitely small-scale rural entrepreneurs.

However livestock keepers themselves see this differently. My friend Elizabeth Katushabe, also an Ankole cattle breeder from Uganda, emphasizes that in her parlance, “private sector” is equivalent to “industrialists”.

And this is exactly the issue here. If we subsume pastoralists and other small-scale livestock keepers under “private sector”, they are lumped into the same group as the industrial livestock sector, represented by such actors as the International Feed Industry Federation, the International Egg Commission, the International Meat Secretariat, etc.

I think it is fair to say that there are few if any commonalities between these two types of actors and that their interests may even be at cross-purposes. The vast majority of livestock keepers just want to make a decent living and be able to give their children some education. They try to achieve this by minimizing their expenditure on inputs, by making social arrangements for access to pastures and by sharing resources and labour with their neighbours and relatives. The industries however thrive on high input systems, pursue economies of scale, engage in cut throat competition, and, in the final analysis, only care about the bottom line.

Well, according to Charles Darwin, there are lumpers and splitters, when it comes to classifications and taxonomy. I think I am definitely a splitter in this case, as I can not see the similarities between small-scale livestock keepers that are often still mired in a moral economy and struggle for their livelihoods on one side and globally operating multinational companies on the other.

The two groups are too distinct in their needs, their resources, their priorities and especially their worldview and agency to be lumped together. For fairness and justice, they must be represented as distinct stakeholder groups in the context of sustainable livestock development and the processes that hopefully lead us there.

24. March 2013

Eco-livestock keepers – living the good life

A picture says more than a thousand words……as I have been raving so much about the benefits (and beauty) of livestock keeping as practiced by Rajasthan’s Raika pastoralists, I’ll just share some images from our last visit to our dang, the group of mobile shepherds that we are following in regular intervals throughout the year.

At the crack of dawn, the sheep flocks go on their first round of grazing.

Its early morning and the adult sheep have already gone on their first round of grazing. The women start preparing for breakfast — While they are out, the women start preparing for breakfast.

The goats, kept mostly to provide extra milk to lambs, are herded separately.

Baddl, 5 years old and currently the youngest member of the dang, has just woken up. — Badl, 5 years old and currently the youngest member of the dang, has just woken up.

Preparations for making butter from the sheep milk that was collected at night

Manju pases with her friends. — Manju poses with her friends.

Mobile dairy: churning butter from last night's milk. — Mobile dairy: churning butter from last night’s milk.

Badl says good morning to the other kids on the block.

By the time, water has been fetched from a distant well, the sheep flocks have returned. — By the time water has been fetched from a distant well, the sheep flocks have returned.

Some high yielding does get are hand-fed to keep them in the peak of their health and production.

All animals are given a regular check-up to note any possible problems - here hooves are checked for thorns. — All animals are given a regular check-up to note any possible problems – here hooves are checked for thorns.

When the animals are taken care of, there is time for personal care also.

The patel is giving instructions to the group, as he is going to Delhi to receive a national award.

2. February 2013

So what’s the future role of small-scale livestock-keepers in food production?

Mama and Adam looking into the future — Pastoralist leaders Neelkanth “Mama” Kurbar from **LIFE Network India** and Adam Ole Mwarabu from the LIFE Network in Tanzania look down into the Rift Valley at the side-lines of the Third Multi-stakeholder Platform of the GAA (Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development) recently held in Nairobi.

The future of livestock keeping will have to revolve around finding a balance between economy and ecology. Economically it might make sense to crowd huge numbers of animals in small spaces and automate their feeding and management but this runs counter to all ecological principles: it requires huge amounts of fossil fuels (to grow and transport feed, to climatize stables), it results in accumulations of manure that become difficult or impossible to dispose of (turning dung from a much sought after asset into a liability and threat to the environment), it raises disease pressure (so that routine use of antibiotics becomes essential), and it is problematic from the animal welfare angle. It’s also not good for livelihoods – studies from various countries where the Livestock Revolution has taken hold testify that it results in depopulated rural areas.

Ecologically, decentralised models of livestock keeping as epitomized by pastoralists are much more preferable. They are based on the optimal utilization of locally available biomass and independent of fossil fuels, manure recycling is integrated into the system, disease pressure is small, and animal welfare is almost solved optimally. So why not support these, if we are concerned about the sustainability of the livestock sector?
“But young people don’t want to do this work and prefer to live in the cities” is the argument that is always raised when one suggests that small-scale livestock keeping may be an answer to the sustainability question. There is certainly some truth in it. Many young people are attracted by the urban life, and – by all means – they should be given a chance to go for it. But there are also many youths who find a life taking care of animals preferable to slogging away at menial jobs and a life in slums. So why not encourage these young people, by giving them respect and support, instead of branding them as backward? By directing subsidies towards these ecological livestock production systems instead of the industrialised ones? By building another livestock development paradigm that takes into account the ecological externalities, instead of always comparing the milk yields of the Indian cow with the Israeli cow and automatically concluding that the second one is so much superior?

According to a remarkable presentation by ILRI’s director Jimmy Smith during the third Multi-stakeholder platform meeting of the Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development (GAA), 80% of livestock derived food is still contributed by small producers. If we focus on raising the performance of these systems – for instance through adequate animal health care – and providing incentives for the young generation, then we can solve the livestock sector sustainability question. And we will help address another burning issue – the high unemployment rates that bedevil not only developing countries, but also Europe and the USA – as well.

25. January 2013

Livestock keepers at the GAA

LIFE Network’s Elizabeth Katushabe (Ankole long-horn breeder from Uganda), “Mama” Nilkanth (Deccani shepherd from India) and Raziq Kakar (SAVES, Pakistan), share a panel with other participants. (Sorry for the quality of the photo…. more news from the Third Multi-stakeholder Platform on sustainable livestock will follow…)