evaluation of the government drought management policies in the support of nomadic communities of fars province

nomadic communities have always played a crucial role in meat production by developing creative and sustainable system in utilizing the scarce natural resources. during the last decade, fars’ nomads have been experiencing changes due to external pressures such as drought that have altered the social, political and economic landscapes and have also been the cause of decline in the health of rangelands. in fact, drought is one of the most important determinants of the quality of life for nomads. herders used a number of different strategies to mitigate the effects of drought, however, the two most frequently used strategies are partial liquidation of herds (reduce herd sizes) and purchasing additional feedstuff to overcome the forage shortages. considering the negative and unexpected consequences of drought, the government has also adopted a package of policies to cope with drought impacts. the purpose of this study was to examine the financial consequences of the frequently used management strategies (liquidation and purchasing additional feed) during extended period of drought and evaluation of government drought management policies in the support of nomadic communities. these management and policy tools should improve the integration of the economic and ecological aspects of drought-induced decisions. to this end, the current study was organized in two sections. in the first section, the effects of drought on the representative farms were quantified and the management strategies were examined using a two-stage stochastic programming model. in the second section, the government drought management policies in the support of nomadic communities were simulated by the model. a sample of 124 producers was interviewed in 2010 . the sampled farms were drawn using a two stage stratified random sampling method. the results indicated that the drought caused the cost of purchasing additional feed to increase by a range between 38 and 77 percent among the representative farms. the effects of drought on the reduction of the herd size ranged between 9 and 34 heads. the results also showed that time, amount of purchasing additional feedstuff and herd liquidation was not optimum at the representative farms. they could improve their economic conditions through moving towards the optimal point. finally, the government drought management policies based on improving the integration of the economic and ecological aspects of drought-induced decisions could be ranked as follows: the provision of drinking water, providing livestock insurance, providing low-interest rate loans, guarantee of purchasing the excess livestock and the purveyance of a cheaper feedstuff.