East African pastoralism in transition: Social and ecological dimensions of vulnerability

Background/Question/Methods

Many traditional pastoralist societies in Africa are facing new and daunting challenges to sustain their production systems in the face of changes in land use and climate.  Livelihood diversification offers a range of potentially valuable strategies to adapt to emerging conditions.  However, newly adopted strategies may instead exacerbate vulnerability if (a) modes of diversification increase ecological sensitivity to disturbances such as drought, (b) adopting new strategies increases households’ risk exposure, or (c) existing and evolving social institutions do not foster effective coping strategies in the context of novel production systems.   We examine dimensions of ecological sensitivity, risk exposure, and coping ability associated with the new advent of maize agriculture in a Laikipia Maasai pastoralist community in north-central Kenya.  In 2011, hundreds of community members began to establish small, individualized farm plots for river-irrigated maize production.   Two years later, less than one-third of those continued to farm. 

Results/Conclusions

The ecological consequences of farming, then land abandonment, showed the unexpected effect of stimulating perennial grass recovery and creating a new riverine matrix of highly productive grass patches and fewer farms.   We developed a dynamic agent-based hillslope model to explore the impacts of grazing pressure and rainfall variability on the mosaic landscape’s function and productivity.  Surveys of risk perceptions revealed that former farmers had underestimated the costs and risks of attempting to diversify through farming.  Farmers and former farmers identified mainly economic and social assets that they associated with coping ability to continue farming, while few mentioned agricultural practices.  At the institutional level we identified enabling factors such as flexible governance, as well as potential barriers to adaptation, such as no integration of grazing and farming land use rules.   We evaluate our findings to better understand the conditions and factors that influence success or exacerbated vulnerability in the course of endeavors toward land use diversification.