The challenges to sustainable beef production in Botswana: Implications on rangeland management
*Kutlwano Mulale* Department of Sociology, Iowa State University.
Abstract
The precursor to Botswana's present-day approach to pastoral issues took form in the colonial period. The colonial period witnessed the fundamental transformation and evolution of social relations, and the institution of market and infrastructure conditions, which wrought the logic for present day policy toward livestock development (Lawry, 1983). Up till then, livestock practices were normally organized and operated under a diversity of social and ecological conditions. The objective of this paper is to outline and analyze the historical development of the cattle sector before integration into the world trade system to present. Much of the data used here is from secondary sources. This paper is guided by the hypothesis that, due to the integration of the beef sector into the world trade system, the character of the interaction between cattle keeping and ecological conditions changed considerably and has had consequent implications in the construction of the livestock policy.
Introduction
There is mounting disapproval for developing countries’ rangeland livestock production systems worldwide. Critics maintain that current practices are bad for the environment. The livestock sector has come to be associated with overgrazing and desertification. Mearns (1996) has argued that the environmental consequences of livestock production differ extensively since production practices are contingent upon the options and restraints afforded by different production systems, as well as institutional and policy contexts. Nonetheless, with the growing commodification of beef, and its augmented significance as an export commodity, the wide-ranging functions performed by cattle, in Botswana, have been simplified or under-valued consequently prompting the transformation of rangelands to monocultures. As a result of the integration of the cattle sector into the world beef industry, the use value of cattle has declined. Customarily, the utility of cattle for owners rested in their provision of milk and draught power, which, among most pastoral farmers form the basis of their subsistence.
In Botswana, the strongest obstruction to the formulation of sustainable cattle sector policies is the vested interest of a small but influential socio-economic elite, who have gained and anticipate to continue doing so, from the cattle sectors’ integration into the world trade system. The prevailing bias towards beef production is induced by the beef protocol under the Lome Convention accorded to Botswana and other African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries by the EEC, now EC. This protocol gave the ACP countries access to the EC market on preferential terms. However, contemporary developments in the world trade in beef products portray a rather gloomy situation for ACP countries as a result of the growing EC surplus ensuing from subsidized production and exports under the Common Agricultural Policy. Escalating EC beef exports have had precisely harsh consequences on ACP beef exporters who now have to compete against EC beef dumped on their alternative markets. Under these circumstances, the ACP beef exporters turn out to be progressively dependent for export sales on their preferential access to the EC market. At present, with changes in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) which include trade liberalization and dismantling of preferential trade terms, Botswana and other ACP beef exporting countries are fated to stumble upon intense competition in their formerly protected markets.
At the national level nevertheless, instead of broadening horizons in the face of this reality, policy makers in Botswana disregard these threats and are pushing harder for the commercialization of the beef sector as a means of increasing productivity. To this end the Government of Botswana is resolute on shifting the use over vast tracts of communal land from communities to individuals, setting up fenced farms to operate in beef production. Ecologists have maintained that the fencing policy is not compatible with the dynamic “drought driven” Kalahari ecosystem that covers much of Botswana (Albertson, 1998). Research findings point to the decline in wildlife populations as fences disrupt migratory routes of wildlife. Additionally, cattle keeping within private enclosures displace peasants and hunter-gatherer communities. With negligible industrial development to provide alternative employment for displaced people, the social costs of farm development in Botswana will be high, exacerbating poverty and in turn environmental degradation.
In the pre-colonial era, Schapera (1943) noted that most cattle-owners in Botswana sold only one or two cows/oxen at a time to purchase essential goods, particularly grain during deficit years. For this reason, the primary purpose for keeping cattle was to obtain a means of subsistence livelihood - a safety net. Enhanced market conditions upheld by the colonial administration and continued by the present government turned a century-old pastoral subsistence society towards market oriented farming. As has been the case worldwide, the prices paid for livestock products fail to reflect fully the environmental costs associated with their production. The artificial attractiveness of the cattle sector has been encouraged through government subsidies of various kinds, which have distorted market prices.
In response to the cattle inclined policies, Botswana's national cattle herd grew from a few hundred thousand cattle in 1950 to close to three million today. The growth in cattle numbers culminated in an intense debate among ecologists who remain divided on the issues and the causes of range degradation. On the one hand the cattle industry is accused of causing range degradation, while on the other, the role of cattle in range degradation is down played and instead amplifying the role of natural phenomenal forces, like drought. A number of authors have articulated the view that Botswana’s rangelands have been severely degraded over the past few decades (Campbell and Child, 1971; Van Rensberg, 1971; Van Vegten, 1981; Arntzen and Veenendaal, 1986; Ringrose and Matheson, 1986). It is important to note that very little, if any, research has been conducted on the level of degradation within the freehold farms for comparison with the communal lands. However, the governments’ reaction to rangeland degradation has been to insist on the privatization of communal land under the pretext of avoiding the “tragedy of the commons.” While in reality, the privatization of land is viewed as a recipe for efficient beef production from a purely productivist perspective.
The World Systems Theory and the Dependency Theories has been employed to help understand the historical development of the cattle industry in Botswana. Polanyi (1944) noted that, no society could, live for any length of time unless it possessed an economy of some sort; but previously to our time no economy has ever existed that, even in principle, was controlled by markets. Wallersten (1984) argued that to understand the internal class contradictions and political struggles of a particular state, we must first situate it in the world economy. The international system shapes and constrains national development strategies. Furthermore, the peripheral countries’ earlier association with core nations in the form of colonialism set conditions for a dependency relationship commonly referred to as neocolonialism. Dos Santos (1970) defined dependency as a situation in which the economy of certain countries is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which the former is subjected.
Historical background of the cattle sector
Pre-colonial
Traditionally, areas outlying from the fields and village were designated grazing land. Various wards were apportioned grazing rights in a single large block, for which an overseer was appointed. One of the responsibilities of the overseer was to ensure that only ward members established cattle-posts in the designated land area. He also encouraged sufficient spacing of cattle-posts. However, there is no information on whether the overseer also regulated the aggregate stocking rate or directed the grazing patterns of individual herds (Lawry, 1983). Cattle numbers fluctuated according to disease and drought incidences. In the wet summer months, with water lying in riverbeds and pans, cattle could be trekked out to graze in the sandveld, retreating again to the perennial water places for the winter and spring. The poorer the pasturage within reach of perennial water the fewer the cattle could survive to the next season. Hence the amount of dry season grazing around perennial water points was the long-term determinant of cattle numbers, with shorter term fluctuations induced by disease, epidemics and drought (Hubbard, 1986).
Describing the pre-colonial economy of the Ngwato Kingdom (of Botswana), Parsons (1977:114) outlined their system of cattle holding as follows; “it was based on the mafisa system, characteristic of Tswana and Sotho societies, whereby the ruling class loaned cattle to clans or families, who became herdsmen holding royal property in a sort of feudal system.” This setup has led to the conclusion that in contrast to other parts of Africa, where land has greater commodity value as a means of production, here cattle were the particular commodity with the same significance in the feudal political economy (Hubbard, 1986). Cattle were both a production good (as draught power, transport and calves) and a consumption good (as milk, meat, and hides) and as a form of saving for future consumption and production (Hubbard, 1986).
The pre-colonial system of grazing land management based upon the overseer has all but disappeared (Hitchcook, 1980) and the basis of the system of mafisa was altered with the transition to private ownership of cattle, which appears to have taken place in the mid-to late nineteenth century. The transition to private ownership did not mean that the mafisa system ended, but it became a loaning of cattle by individual owners instead of the chief alone (Hubbard, 1986). The holder of such cattle enjoyed certain rights, e.g. consumption of milk and using them as draught power. The owner also could expect to increase his cattle, because in general, calves born belong to the owner. The holder had rights to ownership of one or more of the offspring. Mafisa contracts were a major opportunity for the many farmers without sufficient draught power to operate as subsistence farmers (Mthethwa, 1982).
Colonial: 1889 - 1966
The colonial period brought more water-points, opening the grazing wealth of unexploited lands for perennial use, and veterinary medicines leveled out fluctuations due to disease (Hubbard, 1986).As a result there wasevident increase in cattle population and off-take numbers and in the number of water points in the geographical spread of cattle across the country. The country was fenced into separate veterinary compartments (Hubbard, 1986). All these have been the most visible changes on the ground in Botswana’s cattle production. Colonizers treatment of agroecosystems has often aimed at increasing short-term outputs, with no awareness or concern about depletion of the very resources that produced the bounty (Flora, 2001).
The alteration of the world beef trade in the late 1950’s created new openings in the British market resulting from the rising US beef shortfall, causing New Zealand and Australia to switch their supplies from the UK to the more attractive US market. The gap in the British frozen beef market, which, was opened, privileged peripheral Commonwealth suppliers specifically. This was facilitated by the prior existence of commonwealth preferences in the form of exemption from the heavy tariff on imports of boneless and canned beef (Hubbard, 1986). Until this time, Botswana’s beef industry was confined to the regional market outlets of the mining complexes of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and Central African Copperbelt (Perkins, 1991). In the late 1950’s volume restrictions on Bechuanaland Protectorate's (now Botswana) exports in regional markets tightened while preferential opportunities opened up in the British market (Hubbard, 1986).
The most significant demonstration of Britain’s new post-war colonial policy investment in colonial production was the Colonial Development Corporation (CDC). The British Secretary of State for the colonies sent the following message to the colonial governments in commencing the CDC in 1947; “The functions of the CDC which will be under me will be to initiate, finance and operate projects for agricultural or other development in the colonial empire…Need for such expansion (of colonial production) is of course very much in public minds at this moment owing to the prospect of continuing shortages of certain commodities and increasing difficulty in obtaining adequate supplies of dollars for purchase of raw food and raw materials from America…” (Hubbard, 1985).
A colonial development and welfare grant of 400 000 pounds was made available to the Bechuanaland Protectorate explicitly for drilling boreholes. The drilling went ahead on an unparalleled scale, contributing to the 34% increase in the cattle population between 1949 and 1959. Veterinary expenditure was expanded greatly following the restitution in 1955 of the UK grants-in-aid to balance the colony’s budget. Initial plans for the operation was to build a herd of 356 000 over twenty years (Hubbard, 1986). The lack of water supplies was perceived as limiting expansion in the livestock sector, and was also seen as reducing carrying capacity of the range. For this reason the CDF/CD&W grants for borehole drilling, totaling over 850 000 pounds between 1935 - 1965, proved to be a direct and essentially important subsidy to the livestock sector in the protectorate. By 1965, however, a transformation had occurred in the role of water provisioning for livestock production in the protectorate and livestock water development was most intense in the sandveld areas by private livestock holders (Hubbard, 1986). The skewed distribution of livestock holding and borehole ownership grew through mutual reinforcement over time (Emery, 1980).
Skewed patterns of ownership, originating in customary relations in cattle were preserved and reinforced as market relations in cattle became more valuable. The less advantaged had two alternatives:
a)arable crop production
b)labor migration - normally to mines in South Africa.
Mine labor returnee's invested part of their cash earnings in procuring of one or two head of cattle. This was because, for households occupied in subsistence crop production, ownership or at least access to cattle was necessary to successfully cultivate the arable field (Lawry, 1983).
Post-colonial: 1966 - present
The skewed patterns of livestock ownership have given rise to a divergence of production aspirations and successively having implications toward influencing the construction of the livestock policy. It is estimated that 15% of the farmers own 75% of the estimated national herd. This group is quite small but includes some wealthy individuals including key political leaders. The small farmers (within 10 heads or less), including those without cattle, put emphasis on subsistence crop production. For the big cattle barons, arable production is not important. Whatever government assistance program has been accorded to these small arable farmers, it has been limited to maintaining their status as subsistence farmers (Lawry, 1983) and to keep them in the rural areas, to curb rural-urban migration and the resultant urban unemployment problems.
During the colonial period government revenues from cattle were usually more than double government recurrent expenditures on the industry. By contrast, in the post-colonial era, state expenditures on the industry began to exceed tax revenues from it (Hubbard, 1986). Amin (1976) has argued that, historically, nations first penetrated by colonial expansion experienced a period of surplus in their balance of payments. This began to slowly deteriorate as unfavorable terms of trade evolved to the advantage of manufactured goods and to the detriment of peripheral exports. The shift in the fiscal position of the industry, post 1970, reflects the alteration in the industry’s status from being the leading sector overall in the economy while remaining the hub for private local investment (Hubbard, 1986). The result is that the industry has contributed a declining proportion of public revenue while attracting an increasing amount of public expenditure as infrastructural support for the private investment -veterinary fences, stock route maintenance, breeding and management research, bull purchase subsidy, and artificial insemination subsidies etc (Hubbard, 1986).
When the UK (Botswana’s European export market) joined the EEC in 1975, Botswana’s beef exports were threatened by two impending obstacles. Firstly, the tariff and quota barriers and secondly, the satisfaction of European beef quality standards since the EEC Veterinary Commission replaced the UK Ministry of Agriculture as the licensing authority for meat imports. Botswana was thus negotiating both for favorable access and acceptance of her ‘veterinary credentials' (Hubbard, 1986). However, Botswana did manage to gain reasonably favorable access for her beef to the EEC markets in a special concession appended to the Lome Convention Agreement (Hubbard, 1986).