Income diversification strategies among pastoralists in Central Asia: Findings from Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

The loss of land productivity is one of the key challenges facing land use policy-makers worldwide. Pastoralist societies are particularly vulnerable to the loss of land productivity due to their dependence on pastures to raise livestock. Decreasing this dependence through the diversification of livelihood strategies could potentially reduce the vulnerabilities of such societies, with the added benefit of reducing livestock pressure on pastures. This study examines on-pasture income diversification strategies among Kyrgyz pastoralist societies and aims to identify which factors lead to tourism engagement as a non-livestock pasture-related income source. Both individual household and regional (rayon) features associated with diversification are investigated, as are factors such as the perceived high levels of pasture productivity loss. The results show that the income diversification among households differs depending on the number of head of livestock a household owns, regional differences and whether a household manages livestock belonging to others. In addition, the study found no statistically significant result that would show that high perception of pasture degradation would lead to adoption of non-livestock livelihoods, i.e. tourism.

Diversification of Livestock-Keeping Smallholders in Mountainous Rural Regions of Azerbaijan and Georgia

“…The higher the CMR the better the economic performance, as it provides a measure for the remaining share of the revenue that is used for covering fixed costs [68]. We assessed diversification of household income using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), originally invented to measure industrial concentration [69], but now also well-established for assessing income diversification [20,27,70]. We used a normalized version of the HHI with the formula:…”

“…However, in other world regions as well, such as in rural regions in Asia [23] or the Americas [24,25] plus settings in developed countries [26], diversification is widespread. In the Caucasian and Central Asian region, diversified smallholder livelihoods were increasingly pursued in the post-socialist transition period with the breakdown of the large collective and state farm structures, though only a few contributions have explicitly studied diversification [4,12,27].…”

Pastoralists and peasants: perspectives on agrarian change

“…Market reforms following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and decollectivisation in China from the early 1980s have allowed the return of individual holdings of livestock in pastoral regions (Bauer 2005). Despite the non-equilibrium dynamics of montane rangelands (Kerven 2004), there is now less mobility without statemanaged pasture use; more reliance on private cultivation of fodder, as state provision disappeared; few organised markets, and so a shift in many regions from sheep to goats and increased out-migration and settlement schemes, resulting in shortages of herding labour (Sabyrbekov 2019;Kerven et al 2004Kerven et al , 2012Kerven et al , 2016Gyal 2015;Mirzabaev et al 2016;Sheehy, Miller, and Johnson 2006). Changes in land tenure regimes have meant that there is now a hybrid mix of tenure types, with some communal, some private/leasehold and some a combination, with a range of authority structures and land governance systems (Gongbuzeren, Huntsinger, and Li 2018; Cao et al 2013;Upton 2009;Behnke et al 2005;Robinson, Finke, and Hamann 2000).…”

Facilitating livelihoods diversification through flood-based land restoration in pastoral systems of Afar, Ethiopia

“…We have collected this run-off from a large area of these watersheds and directed it to a relatively small cultivated area in the bottomlands. The weir ensures that soil moisture is increased, and soil loss arrested while it makes provision for excess water to drain (GIZ KfW, 2012;Schöning et al, 2012). It was found to be effective to spread flood out of the concentrated flow into the plain so as to reduce the velocity and distribute flood to the wider plains (Hillel, 2005).…”

“…The flow path and intensity of water spreading in the plain (above and below the weir) is controlled by the in-situ microrelief, slope, height difference between the valley and plain surface and flood volume. These landscape characteristics have contributed to a varied moisture regime, flow direction and intensity above and below the structures, which created huge soil moisture variability as well as variable land uses (GIZ KfW, 2012;Schöning et al, 2012). The soil moisture regime was recurrently measured using a soil moisture sensor (TDR-300; Spectrum technologies) at a soil depth of 0-20 cm and 21 to 40 cm in multiple directions from the weirs.…”