By Dr N.V. Sebina.
The Inter Ministerial Technical Committee (IMTC) for the Fencing Component (National Policy on Agricultural Development) has invited Dr N. V. Sebina to present a paper
on Communal Grazing System and another one on Community Farms. These presentations will be made at the next IMTC meeting on the 23rd November 2007 at 09:00Hrs at the National Veterinary Laboratory in Sebele. Dr Debina's research findings will help the committee to decide how best community grazing areas can be managed. The Fencing Component requires that community grazing areas be established where ranches are not feasible.
For more information on the presentation, Dr Sebina on telephone number (+267) 3650225 or the Directo of Animal Production at (+267) 3950411.
Below are articles published quarterly by Dr Sebina on the Models of Rangeland utilisation in Botswana.
MODELS OF RANGELAND UTILIZATION IN BOTSWANA
Part 1: Communal Grazing
Part 2: The Advantages of Communal Grazing
Part 3: Community Ranch
PART 1: Communal Grazing
This is the first of a series of 4 articles to be published every quarter under this topic.
INTRODUCTION
The most complex issues are related to the use of rangelands (Chambers & Feldman, 1973:56). Rangeland usage requires generally, that those responsible for the cattle are also responsible for the rangelands used by their cattle.
This article will deliberate on the different uses of rangelands as manifested in different types of ranches in Botswana. An attempt will be made to define the concepts on the use of rangelands. Four types of ranching are relevant in this analysis, namely communal, community, group or syndicate and individual ranching.
COMMUNAL GRAZING
Many people with wide experience of rural development in Africa believe that communal grazing is inherently unmanageable, and that communal access to pastures can only bring about their depletion and ultimate ruin (Ministry of Agriculture, 1981:1). Examples to support this view are all too common (Runge (1981), Roe (1988), McKean (1992) and Keijsper (1992)). These days it is indeed hard to find a significant area of communal range anywhere between the Sahel and Botswana, which could not be used as evidence against the concept of communal grazing rights. Düvel & Afful, (1994:14) indicated that, since communal grazing is an integral part of subsistence stock farming and the problem of overstocking, a more detailed description of it and its features is appropriate.
Gilles & Jamtgaard (1981) describe a communal pasture as one that is owned by a collectivity upon which all members may graze animals. Because the pasture belongs to all, it is impossible for one member of a community to exclude another’s animals.
According to McKean (1992), communal grazing or common pasture is frequently termed common property to refer to unowned resources, to which no one has recognized rights of any kind and which, therefore, is not property at all. The author also indicated that common property is best thought of as a variety of shared private property. All members of a clearly defined group base common property on the concept of equal access to a resource.
White (1993:11) illuminates some of the features of communal grazing by saying that every tribesman (a citizen who is a member of the tribe occupying the tribal area) is entitled to sufficient land for cultivation and housing to meet his subsistence needs, and he has the right of access for his stock to communal grazing land. While access to communal grazing land and natural water sources is open; access to arable or residential land or to artificial water sources is not, but controlled by the grantee, who has the right to exclude other people. The Ministry of Agriculture (1981), based on Schapera’s research, indicated that during the 1930's and 40's, Tswana tribes had divided their grazing areas into sections, called dinaga (grazing areas). Each of these was the responsibility of a modisa (the man in charge of a grazing section). The main duties of the modisa were to observe the changing conditions of the range, to allocate cattle posts (an area of land for rearing cattle or livestock) according to a set of principles designed to avoid overgrazing, and to relocate cattle posts when increasing stock numbers were endangering the pasture. Hitchcock (1980), Gulbrandsen (1980) and Peters (1994) discuss the traditional rights to land of tribesmen of the Tswana people.
Prior to 1970, the Chief regulated the granting of the rights to use any land. Since 1970 the Tribal Land Boards, constituted under the Tribal Land Act of 1968 have regulated the granting of rights to use any land. No fees are payable for the granting of any customary rights to use any land under the Tribal Land Act. All grants of customary rights made since 1970 are certified by a certificate issued by the Land Board, but grants made by the Chiefs prior to 1970 were often given verbally in the kgotla (a traditional group meeting place where community affairs are conducted or the village meeting place) and are undocumented. Since the granting of rights to use any land are heritable and a large number of the original grantees are still alive. Many people who have legitimate title to land have no documentary evidence to prove it.
Vink (1986:10) noted that during growing season cattle are kept at the cattlepost until the harvest was completed on arable land, thereafter the land reverted to the commonage until the next crop was planted. According to Vink (1986:10), shifting cultivation was practised under conditions of land abundance and there was, therefore, little reason for a group of landholders to try and claim rights to a particular piece of land. With the increasing population pressure on land, this has led to modifications to the traditional communal system of land tenure.
In addition to the mentioned Customary Law and Tribal Land Act, there has developed over time a body of administrative practice connected with the administration of land and water rights. The most important of these is the “eight kilometre rule” which specifies that boreholes for livestock watering must be eight kilometres apart. Also important is the practice by government Departments of allocating unused government drilled boreholes to individuals or syndicates for livestock watering (White, 1993:12).
As outlined by White (1993:18), the Government commissioned Chambers and Feldman in 1972 to prepare a “Report on Rural development”, which became the basis of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) in 1975. The objectives of TGLP were focused on preventing the environmental degradation and stimulating a more commercial approach to cattle farming. Implementation of Tribal Grazing Land Policy started in 1976 with the commencement of the zoning exercise (designating grazing land as commercial and communal). Under this policy some individual cattle owners have been provided with exclusive rights under long-term common law leases in the commercial areas in the expectation that they would develop commercial ranches and reduce pressure on communal land.
The traditional system of rights to land is an issue that needs attention. The late first President of Botswana (Sir Seretse Khama, 1975) articulated the development problems connected with this traditional system of rights to land in the following way:
“Sustained livestock production depends on the availability of good grazing. Protection and improvement of the veld should therefore be a constant objective if we want the cattle industry to keep growing. Unfortunately current practices are working against this goal. With favourable beef prices farmers are naturally eager to increase their herds, and to have good grazing for their animals. But under our system of uncontrolled grazing too often the result of having more and more animals is severe overgrazing. In turn we get soil erosion, bush encroachment and steady reduction in the amount of good grazing land available. The trouble is that, as things stand, it is in no one's interest to do something about it. If one man moves his cattle off a piece of land someone else moves his cattle in. The problem cannot be solved unless livestock numbers are somehow tied to specific grazing. Only then will farmers have a clear incentive to control grazing. Until farmers have this incentive good grazing land will continue to be destroyed --along with the future of our livestock industry.”
Considering, therefore, how strongly the communal traditional land right system is established, and the close connection it has with rural and agricultural development in Africa, the advantages and disadvantages of communal grazing in the context of development need to be examined (Düvel & Afful, 1994).
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PART 2: The advantages of communal grazing
This is the second of a series of 4 articles to be published every quarter under this topic.
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Full and free access to land . Every tribesman has the right of access for his stock to communal grazing land (White, 1993:11). He also has the right of access to natural surface waters for domestic and stock watering purposes and to develop artificial ground water (e.g. wells and boreholes) or surface water sources (e.g. dams and hafirs) for his own use. These rights are heritable.
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Maintenance of tribal unity and authority. There exist rules and regulations that control access to and use of resources. In this context Bromley & Cernea (1989:15) indicate that, “the property owning groups vary in nature, size, and internal structure across a broad spectrum, but they are social units with definite membership and boundaries, with certain common interests, with at least some interaction among members, with some common cultural norms, and often their own endogenous authority systems.”
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Limits gap widening. It prevents land, which belongs to the tribe as a whole to be taken by a few wealthy cattle owners. That is, the national principle of social justice be geared towards ensuring that tribal grazing land is equitably distributed. Sir Seretse (1975) stated that, “if development does not benefit all of Botswana it is not the kind of development we want.”
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No land speculation . In a community there exist institutions and institutional arrangements that enforce prescribed rules of conduct with respect to access and utilisation of resources. For instance, in customary tenure systems over much of Africa the ownership of certain farmland may be vested in a group, and the group’s leaders then allocate portions of the land to various individuals or families. As long as those individuals cultivate their plot, no other person has the right to use it or to benefit from its produce (Bromley & Cernea, 1989:15).
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Benefits collective development . There is a great deal of co-operation among resource users towards their common interests. According to Peters (1994:3), the commons prove to be “good to think with”; this is especially so for theorists in political science, psychology, and economics interested in dilemmas of “collective action” and “public goods”.
The following have been identified as disadvantages of communal grazing:
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No guarantee of tenure . Communal tenure provides neither security nor incentive to individual producers, and, hence, represents obstacles to economic improvements and to individual enterprise (venture). This is mentioned repeatedly in the literature by various researchers, including Hardin, (1968), Sandford, (1983:120), Roe, (1988:146) and Peters, (1994:66).
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No commercial value for land . Under the communal system, individuals may not obtain ownership of land. Thus, it cannot serve as security for a commercial loan and it offers no value on which mortgage may be taken. According to Peters (1994:64), (largely) members of the Kgatla and Ngwato political elite mentioned Tswana tribal area’s lack of any commercial value of land as a disadvantage.
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Improved agricultural productivity impeded . Peters (1994), quoting Isang (1930), puts it as follows, “our resources are communal property and nobody who is willing to progress can have freedom to use his progressive ideas.” The more specific reasons for this, as mentioned by Düvel & Afful (1994), are the following:
i. It is hardly possible to feed and breed better quality stock due to uncontrolled mating and conception and calving cannot be synchronised to periods of likely feed suitability.
ii. Irresponsible damaging of fences and watering places.
iii. Discourages off-take system because the uneconomic small holders let their marketable livestock graze for too long on the grazing land before they are sold.
iv. Unwillingness of farmers to cultivate forage on fields as livestock cannot be fed separately.
v. Livestock diseases are easily spread. A situation were the disease easily spread, was experienced in Botswana in 1995 when a chronic infectious disease of cattle, Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia (Lung Sickness) broke out in the Xaudum area in the North West District.
vi. Stock limitation in communal areas is treated as taboo (Ministry of Agriculture, 1981:4-5). It is widely accepted that if ever it becomes feasible to restrict livestock numbers, per owner, or per unit area, the time for its introduction is not now (Khama, 1975).
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Limitations to protection of natural resources and the environment . Widespread degradation of resources under common use has been attributed to a general lack of adequate regulation inherent in this type of use. The reasons for insufficient control and resultant resource damage can be categorised as related to management objectives, namely conservation, production and social welfare (Düvel & Afful, 1994:19).
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Limitationstosocial welfare. Problems relating to conservation and production have obvious impacts on social welfare and vice versa. Constraints to social welfare due to the institution of common use may typically result from the shift away from traditional methods of its management and use. One obvious effect of this shift to management by modern, central governments is decreasing traditional, local authority and power. In this process there is a shift of the focus of decision-making concerning social welfare to the central government, away from the smaller social unit, for example the community.
McKean (1992), classified communal land as an unowned non-property to which no one has rights and from which no potential user can be excluded. Bromley (1989) referred to it also as non-property with no defined group of users or “owners” and so the benefit stream is available to anyone. Individuals have both privilege and no right with respect to use rates and maintenance of asset. The asset is an “open access resource.”
Runge (1986:624) said, “empirically, it is crucial to distinguish between open access and common property if appropriate policy is to be formulated. Problems of open access arise from unrestricted entry, whereas problems of common property result from tensions in the structure of joint use rights adopted by a particular village or group.”
Communal areas therefore, lack appropriate and suitable management systems and, furthermore, the communal land tenure system is often cited as a disincentive to the promotion of effective grazing management systems as it tends to be everybody’s resource and nobody’s responsibility. McKean states that the importance of independent jurisdiction over the commons is highlighted by many examples of failed common property systems where national governments undermine the independence and authority of the local unit that has managed the common property. This kind of interference is the source of environmental tragedy in Botswana, where the central government, in a self-conscious attempt to undermine the authority of traditional chiefs, has created land boards to allocate common land (McKean, 1992:260).
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PART 3: Community Ranch
The psycho-analysis of ranching in the context of a country such as Botswana is a challenging one, first of all because of the range of academic disciplines involved: technical (in respect of water supply as well as animal husbandry and agriculture), economic, administrative and financial, legal and, especially, sociological (Livingstone, 1976). The idea behind the community ranch concept is to encourage the community to farm in an ecologically sound manner and thereby to optimally utilise and conserve their natural resources, especially vegetation and soil (Keijsper, 1992:13).
Community farms or ranches in Botswana are communally owned and operated, and stocked with cattle from the community. They are intended for the small cattle owners without sufficient cattle numbers or mobility to participate in the group ranching scheme, which will be discussed later. A prerequisite for funding a community farm is that it should have a constitution, a management plan and, have registered participants as an Agricultural Management Association (AMA) to give the group ‘body corporate” status with limited liability. After registration, the Department of Animal Health and Production through the Land Development Programme can supply fencing material for the community farm.
A community farm is therefore, defined as “a ranching unit that is communally grazed, operated and owned by registered members of an Agricultural Management Association, and which has the objective of improving range condition and animal production.
In contrast to the group ranches (see 4), which made new grazing available, the community ranches are to be located within the overgrazed zones surrounding villages, in order to demonstrate improved management of the existing grazing resources (Sweet, 1986). This land does not belong to the community necessarily, but may be rented (though possibly from members in their private capacity). On the other hand, the community herd belongs to individual members rather than to the community (society) and the management committee is primarily responsible for general decision-making but not decisions regarding the disposal of animals, as an individual member determines this.
According to Bromley (1981: 72), a community ranch is similar to common property in that the management group (the “owners”) has the right to exclude non-members, and non-members have a duty to abide by the exclusion. Individual members of the management group (the “co-owners”) have both rights and duties with respect to use rates and maintenance of the things owned by the group.
GROUP OR SYNDICATE RANCH
In view of the many disadvantages and constraints of the communal grazing system, alternative solutions have been sought. The most prominent alternative that has been developed and implemented in Botswana on a selective basis is the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) ranch concept. The idea behind the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) ranch concept is to encourage the community to farm in an ecologically sound manner and thereby to optimally utilise and conserve their natural resources, especially vegetation and soil. For more details on the policy refer to Government of Botswana White Paper No. 2 (1975), Hitchcock (1980), Roe (1988), and Peters (1994).
Under this concept, group formation has been encouraged among small farmers with the hope that group members can gain through the sharing of facilities and resources and consequently can achieve what individuals cannot do on their own (Tsimako, 1991: 20). According to Tsimako (1991:7), TGLP has been implemented in six districts in the central western sandveld areas of Botswana where most of the areas were assumed to be still vacant. These include the six districts namely; Southern Ngwaketse, Kweneng, Central, Kgalagadi, Ghanzi and Ngamiland.
About 501 leasehold ranches have been demarcated throughout the country or in the six districts. About 332 (66.3%) of these have been allocated to individuals and groups of farmers who have formed themselves into Syndicates and AMAs (ranching groups registered under the AMA Act of 1978) while the rest (169 or 33.7%) have not been allocated yet. Group membership range from two (2) to fourteen (14) members (Tsimako, 1991:7). The concept basically involves the provision of livestock infrastructure which consists of camping systems, handling facilities, reticulation of water, etc. to groups of stock-farmers in the community to facilitate the application of sound livestock and veld management practices.
According to Oxby (1981:45), Kenya is the African Country with the longest experience of group ranches. In order to cater for the needs of the whole community and group ranches evolved. It was hoped that by allocating land rights to a group of pastoralists, ideally the group that had traditional rights to it, the rights of the majority would be protected.
Another objective beside this was to make pastoral production more commercial, that is, to sell for slaughter the animals that planners consider “surplus” in order to provide meat and other animal products for the urban areas. African countries with the experience of group ranches are Tanzania, Upper Volta (now known as Burkina Faso), Rwanda, and Senegal, but all with different land rights (Oxby, 1981:49).
A group ranch then, is a production enterprise in which a group of people jointly have title to land, market the surplus in rotation, herd their stock collectively, yet continue to own the livestock as individuals (Düvel & Afful, 1994:22 quoting Simpson, 1973). Membership of the group, in theory, is based on kinship traditional land rights.
The experience with both Kenyan and Botswana group ranches and in other parts of East Africa has resulted in a wide spread sense of failure. The reasons for the failure of these ranches include:
a) The nature of pastoralists land rights (Oxby, 1981). At one extreme, the Kenyan Group ranch members acquire full title to land they use on a semi-permanent basis (that is more security of land); the Botswana ranch members had land on lease for some time, up to 50 years in some cases (that is little security to the land); and then at the other end is the Rwandan case in which ranch members have no ownership rights at all (that is no security to land).
As indicated by Düvel & Afful (1994:23), this arrangement does not augur well for grazing land development and conservation. Besides, the registration process actually decreases the pastoralists rights to the land and therefore, their feelings of responsibility towards it. Under the traditional system the pastoralists do not only have customary use rights to the land, but usually consider themselves freeholders of land which has been handed down to them over generations. Therefore, the signing of legal documents may be interpreted by some pastoralists as not acquiring rights, but as giving them up. In Rwanda they can become liable to instant expulsion from the land they regarded as their own; in Botswana, they are obliged to pay rent for the land they regard as their own. Even in Kenya, accepting the legal title, one group ranch may be interpreted by the pastoralists and by the administrators alike as relinquishing certain customary rights to areas, which were included in other group ranches or which are outside any ranch boundaries.
b) Groups are found to experience relatively more complex problems in running their ranches than individuals. Instead of partnership in ranch development, management etc., group ranches are run on individual lines with members operating independent cattle posts within a fenced or unfenced ranch. Some have gone to the extent of dividing paddocks among different members operating independent cattle posts within a fenced or unfenced ranch (Tsimako, 1991:25).
Group members complain that financial arrangement or contributions are not equitable, that is, they are not based on the number of cattle members own or keep in the ranch but on equal payment per member, which is to the disadvantage of those owning smaller herds. This has resulted in some group members with very few livestock to rather discontinue the keeping of livestock. As a result, some of these have withdrawn from syndicate ranches to move back into the communal areas (Tsimako, 1991:25).
c) There is an assumption that exclusive right over land will give an incentive to farmers to control livestock numbers and invest in improved management and range preservation. Oxby (1981) notes that so far there has been no evidence that stock numbers have been reduced except by migration. The surplus animals are moved away rather than slaughtered and consequently the pressure on the pasture outside the ranches is increased. Some problems encountered in establishing stock quotas on group ranches are the practical difficulties of keeping track of or controlling stock numbers over a large area and that pastoralists reject the notion of a stock quota which is permanent and setting an upper limit on the animal numbers for a particular area of land. This is because their view on maximising their economic benefits is that the quality and location of the pasture is so variable from year to year that it is best to keep the maximum number of animals at all times so that full use will be made of the plentiful pasture in good years, even though the herds may be depleted through starvation in bad years.
As far as the lease is concerned, there are no specific requirements that bind the farmer to keep his or her livestock below a certain limit except general statements which indicate that the rancher should use the ranch in accordance with the principles of good husbandry and laws and regulations of Botswana. In fact when the Central and Ngwaketse Land Boards expressed the desire to set maximum stocking limits on TGLP ranches in the form of appendices to the lease, the Attorney General’s Chambers ruled it illegal (Tsimako, 1991:22). Tsimako, (1991) quoting Machacha, (1985), indicated that, the general dislike for the idea of stock limitations dates back to the early years of TGLP consultation campaign. At implementation concerns were in fact raised that if conservation laws were put to practice they may harm the TGLP because farmers would fear to obtain ranches thinking that they could be used as a means of stock limitations.
The system can cater for the needs of the whole community (Oxby, 1981) or protect the interest of the majority of Botswana farmers (Sir Seretse Khama, 1975). It is characterized by the following problems:
- It is not economically viable in the sense that it may be satisfactory in good years, but in years of low rainfall there may not be enough pasture within the ranch to prevent the pastoralists from ignoring the boundaries and seeking grazing elsewhere.
(ii) Enforcement of stock quotas is not possible because a reduction in the number of livestock implies either a big reduction in living standards or enforced migration of some group ranch members and their animals out of the group ranch.
(iii) An authentic and durable form of group management making provision for consensus and timely decision concerning strategies, innovation etc. has proved very difficult in group ranches.
(iv) Ownership of livestock determines, among other things, whether and how livestock are to be transferred or sold. It is, therefore, possible that the group ranch member would be reluctant to sell certain animals in the herd that he manages, if he does not have the consent of the owner who may be a child or a woman. The latter usually has well defined rights to milk and other animal products.
Similar problems were cited by Tsimako (1991), in Botswana and by Düvel & Afful, (1994), in North West Province (former Government of Bophuthatswana) with emphasis on Kudumane and Ganyesa Districts as affecting group ranches performance.
Based on the above problems, it is very clear, that the traditional organisation of pastoral production remains largely unchanged, and it would be unrealistic to expect the mere establishment of group ranches to enable radical changes in pastoral production, such as establishing stock quotas and increased off take (Oxby, 1981).
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