Pastoralists in the Horticulture Value Chain

Globally, there are so many mutually beneficial institutions that govern positive relationships between pastoralists and agrarian communities. For example, we have witnessed several literatures highlighting that pastoralists grazing their animals on the farmers fields after the harvest improves the productivity of the land in many ways while also feeding the animals during one of the lean seasons. On the contrary, there are so many reports of conflicts between the two communities (farmers-pastoralists conflict) that led to losses of lives and assets.

The piece I am presenting here is neither a research or a case study but sharing an encounter of my quick visit in a 94% agrarian Village in Central Chad, called Tounkoul. Tounkoul is known to produce a number of horticultural and cereal crops which include sweet potatoes, tomatoes, sorghum, millet etc and several fruits. The village is characterized by lack of infrastructures such as roads, electricity and telecommunication. One of the major issues raised at one of my focus group discussions is absence of road as a major underlying cause of poverty.

The image above represents pastoralists providing service to the farmers in transporting sweet potatoes from Tounkoul to Mongo (about 35kms and the capital city of Guera Region). The farmers and pastoralists have a wonderful contract in dealing with this partnership. For every 2 sacks transported, farmers pay 6 dollars to the pastoralists. But if the price of sweet potatoes is very low in Mongo city, there is already a backup plan of providing one sack of potatoes to the pastoralist for every sack transported.

This is really fascinating transaction whereby pastoralists play a supportive role in the value chain of sweet potatoes. This is something development practitioners need to harness in building the relationship between pastoralists and agrarian communities.