High-Reliability Pastoralism Versus Risk-Averse Pastoralism

Abstract

The literature on pastoralism is sufficiently rich to accommodate two very different models ofpastoralism. Currently, virtually all attention given to pastoralism focuses on herder risk aversion, ecological adaptation, and the need for herd mobility in the face of an unpredictable environment. In contrast to the model of risk-averse pastoralism, the disequilibrium-based models of ecological dynamics on rangelands, often referred to as the new range ecology, enable us to see pastoralism as a high-reliability institution. From this perspective, high-reliability pastoralism is the search and attainment of reliable peak performance through the use and management of a highly complex range and livestock technology. The policy implications for pastoral development and rangelands are very different if pastoralists are found to be primarily reliability seeking rather than risk averse. Moreover, the implications for our understanding of pastoralism and its future are profound and differ appreciably from current conventional wisdom.A great deal of ink has been spilt over what is seen as the degradation of the largest land category in the world, this planet's arid and semiarid drylands, by its largest group of users, that is, pastoralists. Much of this written record needs to be rethought entirely, and what follows is, we believe, the first major rethinking of pastoralism in the past 15 years. Its major implication is that only after we have a more appropriate model of pastoralist behavior can we then address both what pastoralists are actually doing and the policy implications of their actions.Why do we need a new model of pastoralist behavior? The study of pastoralism continues to center on the implications of unpredictability in rangeland ecosystems for pastoral societies and land-use patterns (Sandford, 1983a, is the starting point of any such study). Conceiving unpredictability as risk and pastoralists as risk averters makes sense, if rangeland unpredictability is in fact the core exogenous driver of pastoralist decision making. We argue instead that the central concern of pastoralists is to better manage a predictably unpredictable environment so as to establish a reliable flow of life-sustaining goods and services from rangeland ecosystems that are in fact an endogenous part of their production systems. Downloaded from 388 As a start, think of the risk-averting pastoralist as engaged in an attempt to avoid or escape the high hazards of ecological unpredictability, given that the pastoralist has no control over the probability of those hazards occurring. The pastoralist in search of reliability is, in contrast, actively engaged in ongoing efforts to reduce the probability of those hazards he or she cannot avoid by managing temporal and spatial diversity in grazing opportunities, and diversity in livestock capabilities and response. Rather than being risk averse in trying to avoid hazards altogether, pastoralists accept and even take risks to respond to highconsequence hazards they cannot altogether avoid. In the classi...

Living Off Uncertainty: The Intelligent Animal Production of Dryland Pastoralists

“…Roe et al (1998), by contrast, have described pastoralism as a high-reliability system, hence as a sui generis system of production, 'native' to structurally unpredictable environments and operating not by avoiding risk but by harnessing it as the very base of production. This line of thinking, that we will follow closely, invites us to conceptualise nomadic pastoralism as geared towards the exploitation of asymmetric distribution (which is prevalent) rather than seeking uniformity and stability (which is exceptional).…”

“…Pastoralism itself has indeed been described as a high-reliability system (Roe et al, 1998). This approach is useful in showing that a production system does not need to work with uniformity and stability (that is, fit an equilibrium model) in order to be 'modern' (be it in the sense of 'rational' or 'technologically advanced').…”

“…5. On the survival and adaptation of risk-aversion heuristics even within pro-mobility perspectives in pastoral development, see Roe et al (1998). 6.…”

Mobility, Market Exchange and Livelihood Transition: Fulbe Flexibility in Tanout, Niger

“…To live from livestock sales, pastoralists must try to maintain their herds at 'peak livestock loads' (Roe et al 1998) so that they may sell some livestock, either smallstock or bulls, for regular purchases of grain. To manage more hazardous dry seasons, they sell calves, old cows and young heifers to buy fodder for fertile cows, a practice that has grown among pastoralists over the past decade.…”

“…In different ways, with different knowledge bases, the Woδaaбe and Katsinen-ko'en turn this uncertainty into calculable risks to manage the various advantages and challenges presented to them. In the high-reliability pastoralism that Roe et al (1998) describe, hazards or risks are accepted and managed through high technical competence, performance and oversight, and a constant search for information and improvement that, as Krätli and Schareika (2010) detail, most Woδaaбe aspire to. The Katsinen-ko'en operate from a different knowledge base, but deal with no fewer risks and hazards than the Woδaaбe, though in somewhat different ways.…”