This activity focuses on crop farming.

It consists of:

• developing and implementing ‘a land use and administration system that is centered on local reality and livelihood systems so that different development initiatives complement with each other with sense of accountability’;
• allocating land [in pastoral areas] for higher social and economic purposes by linking with national economic development priorities’;
• enabling ‘the leadership … to implement policies and legislation through mobilization of the people; accountability and commitment’.

COMMENTARY

1. Building on the customary land-tenure system rather than replacing it. The premise of this activity is that ‘the customary system and government have not been collaborating with respect to recognition of communal land holdings that is acceptable to communities’, and that ‘it is therefore important to develop and implement a land use and administration system that is centered on local reality and livelihood systems’ (p.44). The way forward is better collaboration but the goal is recognition of communal land holding that serves the way the land is used sustainably by communities in pastoral systems. In other words, there is a need in pastoral areas for a ‘land use and land administration system’ that acknowledges the customary system of communal holdings and builds on it rather than replacing it. However, this activity appears to be aimed at securing collaboration with government plans for land-use conversion more than at securing recognition of communal land holdings. Elsewhere, the policy acknowledges that ‘land-use conversion … and a development strategy that does not consider [its] impact’ has been an obstacle to pastoral development (p.22), and even that the fact that ‘rangelands are taken for various purposes [i.e. converted to other uses] … creates discontent in resource utilization and due to other additional causes, conflict has been ensued between pastoralists and local and neighboring communities’ (p.76).
2. Collaborating in using the best pastoral land for agriculture? The description of the activity starts by saying that ‘There is vast land that is suitable for agriculture in pastoral areas’, but ‘the customary system and government have not been collaborating’. The implication is that, had there been collaboration, the ‘vast land suitable for agriculture in pastoral areas’ would have been put to good use for crop farming. The ‘collaboration’ that the new system for land use and land allocation is meant to secure, or so it would seem, is one in which the best pastoral land is used for crop farming.
3. Allocating the best land in pastoral areas for higher social and economic purposes. The new system of land use and land administration is intended to smooth the way to the second component of the implementation activity, which consists of identifying land to be allocated ‘for higher social and economic purposes by linking with national economic development priorities’ (p.44) – ‘social and economic purposes’ that are, presumably, ‘higher’ than pastoral development or supporting pastoral livelihoods in pastoral areas. In other places, this policy acknowledges that ‘land-use conversion … and a development strategy that does not consider [its] impact’ has been an obstacle to pastoral development (p.22), and even that the fact that ‘rangelands are taken for various purposes [i.e. converted to other uses] … creates discontent in resource utilization and due to other additional causes, conflict has been ensued between pastoralists and local and neighboring communities’ (p.76).
4. Not on the basis of pastoral systems. Rather than building on the customary system of communal land holdings in pastoral areas as suggested in the premise (see points 1 and 2 above), this implementation activity appears to be aimed at harnessing or replacing it. Identifying land suitable for agriculture in pastoral areas and allocating it ‘for higher social and economic purposes’ – i.e. converting dry-season grazing reserves in pastoral areas to other uses as determined by the federal government based on ‘national … priorities’ – appears inconsistent with the policy objective of building pastoral development on pastoralist livelihood systems and ecology — as specified in Specific Objective (a) and Specific Objective (b).

b. Extension programs shall be developed by taking the agro-ecology and livelihood of the people into consideration (p.44) »