Recherche
2 items
Training module on conflict-sensitive journalism related to mobile livestock production systems in West Africa and the Sahel
Mobile livestock production systems have been facing a number of challenges over the past twenty years, including farmer-pastoralist conflicts and civil insecurity in West Africa and the Sahel. In recent decades, conflicts initially sparked by competition over natural resources have gradually evolved into struggles for control of land between socio-cultural groups, and politico-religious demands that have intensified the displacement of both animals and people. At the same time, we note that the media - print, radio and audiovisual - most often focus on pastoral issues, such as the management of land conflicts between farmers and herders, and access to transhumance corridors. Pastoralists and pastoral households are therefore most often described in terms of this general conception of pastoral farming as vulnerable to climatic, environmental, health and terrorist risks, and as inefficient in the context of agricultural modernisation policies. All in all, these observations lead us to conclude that pastoral livestock farming is a production system that is not only under-represented, but also little-known by the media in West Africa and the Sahel, who more often than not are content to relay current representations and official events about it.
What evolution scenarios for mobile livestock systems by 2040?
Livestock is a strategic sector in West Africa and the Sahel, both in terms of the size of its livestock population and production, as well as in terms of the importance in the livelihoods and food security of millions of households. Historically, ruminant husbandry systems are characteristic of the economies and management of the vast arid Sahelian spaces and they form a central element of the culture of the families of pastoralists, sedentary livestock breeders and sedentary agro-livestock breeders. But livestock farming is above all an illustration of the potential offered by the valorisation of the region's agro-ecological complementarities, which makes it the first vector for the integration of economies and territories through a system of complex exchanges. This system, which makes it possible to cope with the variability of natural resources, organizes synergies between agricultural production systems and livestock systems, is a vector of links and dialogue between communities. Finally, it helps to supply the animal protein deficit markets of the coastal countries.