Pasture posture in times of climate change

BY THE end of the Pleistocene Epoch, which began 2.6 million years ago and lasted until 11,700 years ago, both settled agriculture and pastoralism had begun. The latter, an expansive grazing system for livestock production, evolved as a source of sustenance as Homo sapiens transitioned to a new climate and a new phase of life.

This grazing system is still in practice, even though it is barely understood or documented. In fact, it is still an economic activity for 100200 million people across the world, including 13 million in India. One-fourth of the planet’s territorial surface is devoted to pastoralism. It is climate resilient and adaptive—when it first took shape, the world was on the cusp of a change from the ice age to one of gradual warming (not the human-induced one that tentatively began around the industrial revolution) and modern humans were all over the planet. Even now, it is usually found in harsh climatic zones that are invariably the most resource-scarce. The practice has thus continued to evolve to fight changing climate conditions more effectively.

The system revolves around unrestricted mobility of people and livestock in cyclical mode to access grazing grounds. Pastoralists cross regional and national boundaries and operate on both private and public lands. Pastoralism also thrives around the cropping system as they benefit each other: crop residue on farms becomes fodder for grazing livestock, which in turn provides manure to the farmers.

But modern systems have outrightly rejected pastoralism, deeming it redundant. Environmental authorities across the world have termed grazing as a threat. Agricultural policies have over time prioritised settled agriculture and livestock farming to boost productivity. As a result, pastoralism has been pushed into oblivion.

Thus, when the UN’s Food and Agriculture

Organization released “Making way: developing national legal and policy frameworks for pastoral mobility”—a definitive set of arguments and recommendations on protecting pastoral communities and their mobility—hope arose for a dose of support. In a powerful argument, the document states, “pastoralists are considered backwards looking and unproductive and have historically been undermined by adverse legislation and a lack of supportive legislation. Pastoralists are vulnerable to resource appropriation, sedentarisation and restrictions on mobility. As they are squeezed out of productive areas, they are led to concentrate in and compete over limited available grazing resources.” It further adds, “In the absence of legislation that protects and regulates mobility, pastoralists enter into conflict with other resource users and the state.”

Pastoralism is targeted as being harmful to the environment and not productive enough to be encouraged as an economic activity. But, as support for its revival and recognition picks up in several countries, including in Europe, Africa and Asia, the system is shown to have many benefits. Pastoralists generate and distribute natural manures that, estimates show, are worth US $45 billion a year.

Studies show pastoral systems have more protein output per unit of feed than intensive systems. In India, they account for over 70 per cent of total meat output and 50 per cent of milk output. “The livestock sector comprises 4.5 per cent of India’s GDP, with two-thirds coming from pastoralist production,” says “Meat Atlas 2021”, published by non-profits Heinrich Böll Foundation and Friends of the Earth Europe. Pastoralism is also practised by the poorest communities in the harshest geographies. Policy support will thus make the economy of the poorest climate-resilient.

UN’s latest appeal for national support to protect mobility of pastoralists brings focus to the climate-resilient sustenance system