Pastoralists and irrigation in the Horn of Africa: Time for a rethink?

There is much land in pastoral areas of the Horn of Africa that could be converted to irrigated agriculture and thus provide an alternative or additional livelihood for pastoralists. There is a long history of successful indigenous irrigation in the Horn of Africa but interventions by outsiders to involve pastoralists in irrigation in the last sixty years have largely failed. The causes for failure vary but are largely known. Many people experienced in pastoral development oppose further support by outsiders for the development of irrigation by pastoralists. This opposition ignores changes in the factors which caused past failure and in the demand for irrigation now. These changes are reviewed and attention drawn to the survival of past failures and the continuing expansion of the area of irrigation involving pastoralists. The key issues in further expansion are discussed. The purpose of this note and the importance of the issue This paper is not a presentation of the results of empirical research. It is, rather, a plea for a rethink about the potential of irrigated agriculture to be a valuable alternative or additional livelihood to pastoralists 2 in the Horn of Africa . Over the last half-century pastoralists’ wealth and their welfare have been in sharp decline and it is becoming increasingly urgent to find other livelihoods for many of them. In quantitative terms adoption of irrigated farming could be of very considerable importance. The size of the pastoral population in the Horn of Africa (HOA) has been estimated at between about 12 (ICRC, 2005) and 22 million people (Morton, 2008), depending on source and on definition, although equally competent authorities have made both higher and lower estimates. The total estimated amount of irrigable (including already irrigated) land in or immediately adjacent to pastoral areas is 2.2 million hectares. Table 1 below shows the figures for individual countries. At an estimate of the population near the upper end of the range given above, and at a standard household size of 6 persons, the irrigable land/pastoral-household ratio (shown in the right hand column of the table) ranges from near-zero in Djibouti to 1.25 hectares/household in Ethiopia. These figures are extremely rough (and variable between sources and definitions of “pastoralist” and “irrigable”), but they are not wholly without foundation. Table 1: Irrigable land and the number of pastoralists in the Horn of Africa Country Pastoralists (persons in millions) Extent of irrigable land in pastoral areas (‘000s has.) Irrigable land (has)/ pastoral household (no.) ratio Djibouti 0.1 1 0.06 Eritrea 1.7 137 0.48 Ethiopia 8.0 1,673 1.25 Kenya 4.5 173 0.23 Somalia 5.0 240 0.29 Horn of Africa total 19.3 2,224 0.69 Sources: Awulachew et al. 2007 (Table 9); USAID.2011; FAO Aquastat (Kenya) 2006; FAO Aquastat (Somalia) 2005; FAO Aquastat (Eritrea) 2005; FAO 1997. 1 It is based on secondary sources particularly those available on the Internet. 2 My working use of the term pastoralists includes not only those who are presently engaged in and largely dependent on the husbandry of ruminant livestock (including camels) in the pastoral areas but also those who, while not themselves currently engaged in a pastoral livelihood, have or had parents who did so. The term “(Ex-) pastoralist” is used to designate those who have just abandoned a pastoral livelihood or are on the margin of doing so 3 I am defining the Horn of Africa in this note as including Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.