Drivers of increased soil erosion in East Africa’s agro-pastoral systems: changing interactions between the social, economic and natural domains

Abstract

Increased soil erosion is one of the main drivers of land degradation in East Africa's agricultural and pastoral landscapes. This wicked problem is rooted in historic disruptions to co-adapted agro-pastoral systems. Introduction of agricultural growth policies by centralised governance resulted in temporal and spatial scale mismatches with the complex and dynamic East African environment, which subsequently contributed to soil exhaustion, declining fertility and increased soil erosion. Coercive policies of land use, privatisation, sedentarisation, exclusion and marginalisation led to a gradual erosion of the indigenous social and economic structures. Combined with the inability of the new nation-states to provide many of the services necessary for (re)developing the social and economic domains, many communities are lacking key components enabling sustainable adaptation to changing internal and external shocks and pressures. Exemplary is the absence of growth in agricultural productivity and livelihood options outside of agriculture, which prohibits the absorption of an increasing population and pushes communities towards overexploitation of natural resources. This further increases social and economic pressures on ecosystems, locking agro-pastoral systems in a downward spiral of degradation. For the development and implementation of sustainable land management plans to be sustainable, authorities need to take the complex drivers of increased soil erosion into consideration. Examples from sustainable intensification responses to the demands of population increase, demonstrate that the integrity of locally adapted systems needs to be protected, but not isolated, from external pressures. Communities have to increase productivity and diversify their economy by building upon, not abandoning, existing linkages between the social, economic and natural domains. Locally adapted management practices need to be integrated in regional, national and supra-national institutions. A nested political and economic framework, wherein local communities are able to access agricultural technologies and state services, is a key prerequisite towards regional development of sustainable agro-pastoral systems that safeguard soil health, food and livelihood security.

Classification and characterisation of livestock production systems in northern Tanzania

“…Integration of crop and livestock agriculture can contribute to yields and agricultural sustainability [ 65 ], but may be limited in crop-producing pastoral households in East Africa [ 51 ]. Unsustainable farming practices in combination with the common pastoral imperative to maximize herd sizes may also contribute to further rangeland declines if profits from agriculture are invested in additional livestock [ 4 , 51 , 66 ]. Strengthening extension services and the promotion of participatory initiatives that can support crop production is likely to be particularly beneficial in communities in which the cultural traditions of agriculture are relatively weak [ 20 ].…”

Games as boundary objects: charting trade-offs in sustainable livestock transformation

“…Recognizing this claim to pastoralism opens the space for alternative understandings of livestock futures, which may not surface when discussion is premised on a narrow view of intensification and assumption of meat and milk production as the primary role of livestock. And, indeed, other studies confirm the potential for some locally co-adapted farming and agro-pastoral systems to be more sustainable, in their physical and social context, than an intensified alternative (Jones & Thornton, 2009;Ran et al, 2017;Scoones, 1995;Wynants et al, 2019).…”

Classification and characterisation of livestock production systems in northern Tanzania

“…In addition, there is often limited integration of crop and livestock production in pastoral households, such as through the use of manure as fertiliser[47]. Unsustainable farming practices in combination with the common pastoral imperative to maximize herd sizes may also contribute to further rangeland declines if profits from agriculture are invested in additional livestock[4,47,59].…”