Camels raise Karamoja pastoralist households’ resilience to drought

In pastoral systems in arid and semi-arid parts of Eastern Africa, including Uganda, camels are increasingly being integrated into herds as a strategy to adapt to increasing drought. The study “The role of camel production on household resilience to droughts in pastoral and agro-pastoral households in Uganda” by Robert Asiimwe et al., published in Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice (2020) 10:5, used data from 116 households in the Karamoja area of Uganda to examine the role of adopting camel-keeping in the resilience of pastoralist households to drought. Descriptive statistics showed that camel tropical livestock units (TLUs) constituted 25% of the total TLUs of the herd among adopting households. Principle component analysis showed that income-smoothing factors (increased off-farm income and alternative sources of income) contributed most to resilience. Econometric results showed that a unit increase in the proportion of camel TLUs increased household resilience to drought by 20%. It is recommended to place greater emphasis on income diversification, both on- and off-farm, in programmes aiming to build pastoralist households’ resilience to drought.

Posted on 7 April 2020 in Pastoralism & Climate Change, Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition