More than three decades ago, academics, development workers and scientists convened a conference in Nairobi to evaluate the likely ‘future of pastoral peoples.’ The conference followed a turbulent decade of drought and dislocation, and many researchers who attended that meeting thought it possible that they were witnessing the disappearance of a way of life (Galaty et al., 1981). There have in the intervening decades been several similar stock-taking conferences, most recently a meeting in 2011 on the future of African pastoralism (Catley et al., 2013). Contrary to what one might have expected in 1980, these subsequent meetings have chronicled the...

The object of this study is to compare the economic returns derived from devoting the Awash valley to pastoralism versus irrigated cotton or sugar cultivation. Our unit of comparison is a hypothetical hectare of riverine floodplain left to pastoralism versus the observed returns per hectare to various forms of cotton and sugar cultivation in the Awash valley.

The following analysis will show with reasonable certainty that pastoralism is either economically comparable or more advantageous than either cotton or sugar cane cultivation. While a well-run private cotton farm can achieve rough productive parity with pastoralism, state cotton farms lost money for...

The first step in this analysis is to estimate the returns to pastoralism from the seasonal use of a hypothetical average hectare of Awash valley grazing land. To do this we build a model of Afar herd performance based on a body of field research stretching back over the last four decades.

The calculation begins with an estimate of primary production ― the amount of natural vegetation produced on a given area of floodplain grazing, a certain proportion of which is usable as forage for livestock. Estimates in the scientific literature for floodplain forage production from the Awash Valley vary...

Cotton cultivation produces a raw agricultural commodity ― unginned seed cotton ― that is then processed into lint cotton and seeds. Seed cotton is comparable to the live animals and milk production used in this analysis to calculate the returns to pastoralism ― all are lightly processed agricultural commodities that producers might sell onward for further processing.

Table 8 shows the returns to seed cotton farming on the Middle Awash Agricultural Development Enterprise (MAADE), a large, irrigated state-owned cotton farm in Amibara District. The farm was set up in 1969, nationalised when the Derg came to power in the mid-1970s,...

Located on the Awash River near Lake Beseka, the Metahara Sugar Factory began producing sugar in the 1960s under the management of HVA (Handels Vereniging Amsterdam, a Dutch firm), was nationalised under the Derg and has remained a wholly state-owned operation (Nicol, 2000). Two other large sugar estates are located elsewhere in Oromiya Region, and two additional factories are currently under construction in Afar Region, all under government ownership (Girma and Awulachew, 2007; Awulachew et al., 2007; interviews with Metahara managers and the Ministry of Water Affairs).

Like cotton, sugar production begins with a raw agricultural commodity ― sugar cane...

This study examines the relative profitability of three different farming options ― cotton plantations, sugar plantations, and pastoral livestock keeping ― for the Awash valley. For cotton farming in particular, the comparison is complicated by the different kinds of cotton farming operations that have been documented at different times. At 2008-09 prices, the estimated annual net returns to pastoralism per hectare of valley pasture were about EB 6,000 at the lower range of potential stocking densities, up to EB 12,000 at high animal densities. These benefits are in marked contrast to annual losses of more than EB 2,000 per hectare...

In an unpredictable natural environment, the reliability of a production system may be as important as its profitability. It is impossible at present to accurately predict the impact of climate change on the Awash river system, but whatever it brings, climate change makes the future more uncertain (Ericksen et al., 2013). Stability of income may therefore provide a second yardstick against which we can judge the suitability of alternative agricultural production systems for the Awash valley.

The Ethiopian government views the agricultural development of the Awash as a means of both increasing and stabilising incomes to reduce dependency on food...

Distinctive environmental problems are associated with each of the production systems reviewed here. For pastoralism, rangeland overgrazing and degradation is the main concern. Cotton cultivation is associated with deforestation to create arable fields, the introduction of the invasive tree Prosopis juliaflora, and with raised water levels leading to the salinisation or alkalisation of soils and the eventual abandonment of cultivated areas. The Metahara Sugar Estate is threatened by the expansion of Lake Beseka, an adjacent saline Rift valley lake, but it would appear that excessive irrigation or improper drainage are not major contributors to the lake’s expansion (Belay, 2009). The...

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, there was a blueprint for African range and livestock development projects: the ranching model. Improved levels of livestock production were one of the many benefits that ranching projects promised to deliver, and at first this claim seemed so self-evidently true that no one critically examined it (Behnke, 1985). When researchers did compare ranch and pastoral productivity in the early 1980s, their studies revealed that, contrary to expectations, pastoralism was the more productive of the two systems (Penning de Vries and Djiteye, 1982; Cossins, 1985; Western, 1982; de Ridder and Wagenaar, 1984). But by this time...

This study compared the economic returns derived from pastoralism versus large-scale irrigated cotton or sugar plantations in the Awash valley of north-eastern Ethiopia. The analysis supports three main conclusions:

In the Awash valley, pastoral livestock husbandry is more profitable than cotton farming. While private cotton cultivation may occasionally achieve rough productive parity with pastoralism, state cotton farms lost money for decades and their mismanagement has led to soil salinisation, water logging, lost soil productivity and weed infestation. It would appear that the irrigated fields that were once part of the state farms are no longer productive enough or profitable enough...