Grasslands of the World.pdf - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

Grasslands of South Africa 91
property rights ; only the cropping areas are normally allocated to individual
households, while the grazing areas tend to be shared by members of a
community. The communal sector has a substantially higher human population
per unit area than the freehold sector, and has suffered from lower levels of
state intervention. Investments in infrastructure (access roads, fences , water
provision , power supply, dipping facilities) have not kept pace with those in
freehold areas, where regional authorities have orchestrated the maintenance
of roads and fences. The production systems in the communal areas are based
on pastoralism and agropastoralism, and the majority of households are
subsistence-based and labour intensive, with limited use of technology and
external inputs. The outputs and objectives of livestock ownership are more
diverse than in commercial livestock production, and include draught power,
milk , dung, meat , cash income and capital storage, as well as socio cultural
factors. The combination of objectives tends to be met by a policy of herd
maximization rather than turnover; hence even the large herd owners tend to
sell only to meet cash needs, leading to higher stocking rates than in the freehold
system. The mean land parcel size (612 ha) in the former homelands of Ciskei
and Transkei is greater than that of the freehold areas of the Western (243 ha) or
Eastern Cape (451 ha), reflecting the free-ranging nature of livestock.
Communal area livestock production contributes 5–6 percent of formal
agricultural output and is mainly confined to the eastern and northern part of
the country. However, herd sizes vary considerably between and within regions,
and livestock ownership is strongly skewed, with a small number of people
owning large herds and the majority owning few animals or none at all.
Stock numbers tend to be unevenly distributed across the landscape in
communal areas. There is a tendency for high concentrations of people and
livestock near to permanent water, while other areas remain potentially
underutilized due to a lack of water. In the rugged terrain of Ciskei, Transkei
and Kwa-Zulu Natal, livestock spend the longest part of the day on the interfluvial
ridges. Animal numbers tend to be geared more to the quantity of
reliable water than to the reliable quantity of forage, hence drought effects tend
to be more severe in communal than in commercial areas.
Mixed livestock ownership is more common in communal than freehold
areas. Cattle are the generally preferred livestock species, but economic
and ecological conditions often limit the possibilities for cattle ownership.
Ownership of livestock is skewed, with 5 percent of residents owning 10
or more cattle in rural villages in the former Ciskei (Ainslie et al., 1997),
while 67 percent of households own no cattle. In the case of sheep , 7 percent
of households own 10 or more, with 82 percent owning none. For goats ,
18 percent of households own 10 or more, while 43 percent own none.
Cattle , sheep and goats are herded during the cropping season in cropping
areas, and where there are predator or theft risks in other areas, but herding
tends to be relaxed during the dry season , during which animals have access to