Introduction

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Further information

 

Rangeland management and livestock feeding strategies in Pakistan's Karakoram region.

Photo of pasture in Hunza valley
  • Collaborators
    • University of Bonn, Germany
    • Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP)
    • Pakistan Forest Institute
    • Pakistan Agricultural Research Council
    • International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
    • Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cíentificas (Spain)
  • EU Agri-Karakoram Newsletter

Around 1 million people live in the remote Northern Areas of Pakistan and most of them are engaged in subsistence agriculture. The region is semi-arid, lying as it does, in the Himalayan rain-shadow. In order to grow arable crops and livestock fodder, farmers divert water from glacial rivers onto their fields through a complex system of irrigation channels. Cultivable land is a scarce resource and, to avoid crop damage, livestock are dispatched to high altitude, alpine-style pastures for the summer months.

This practice of "transhumance" is typical of many mountain agricultural systems. The Northern Areas of Pakistan have undergone dramatic change over the last 3 decades as a result of two factors. First, the construction of the Karakoram Highway along the ancient Silk Route has resulted in a marked increase in the movement of goods and labour between the Northern Areas and the rest of Pakistan. Secondly, community-based development activity initiated by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) has had a significant impact on local livelihoods.

Against this backdrop of change, we have embarked on a 3.5 year research project, funded under the EU INCO-DC programme, which started in December 1998, investigating ways of improving livestock production, while taking account of the impact of livestock grazing on the fragile ecological resource represented by the high altitude pastures. The project will examine current constraints to livestock production by measuring seasonal changes in feed availability and livestock productivity. It may then be possible to test ways of relieving these constraints in order to improve production in a sustainable fashion. We are particularly interested in whether changes in transhumance practices resulting from economic development are causing degradation of mountain pastures.

The farming system in Pakistan's Northern Areas is highly integrated in nature with a high degree of inter-dependence between arable cropping, forestry, fruit growing and livestock production. Furthermore, there is a close inter-relationship between livestock production within the village precincts and on the high pastures. The project therefore provides an exciting opportunity to bring established Macaulay expertise in systems research and apply it in wholly new circumstances.

In practical terms the research will involve a combination of questionnaires and actual field measurements of livestock productivity and pasture utilisation. This will be coupled with a study of farm household economics to allow appropriate interpretation of recent and predicted change in the livestock sector, within the wider socio-economic framework. The research will be conducted in 6 villages located across the full range of agro-ecological zones found in the Northern Areas. On the livestock side, seasonal measurements of animal production will be made in a sample of core households selected for intensive study. In addition seasonal utilisation of animal feed resources will be measured. These measurements will be combined to identify critical feed resource deficits during the annual livestock management cycle. For the pasture ecology component of the project, exclosure plots will be employed to estimate seasonal pasture productivity across the extreme altitudinal gradient found in the study region. In addition, the spatial utilisation of high pastures by different livestock species will be quantified. Finally, for the socio-economic component of the project, participatory rural appraisal techniques will be used to place the biological findings within the wider context of the social and economic infrastructure of the study region.

The project has a strong focus on international collaboration, providing ourselves and our European colleagues with the opportunity to work with a leading NGO in the area of participatory rural development and research (AKRSP). The project also aims to build capacity among developing world scientists with the training of two Pakistani PhD students and close collaboration with national Pakistani research institutions.

Dissemination of results to end-users ranging from development NGO's to small-holder farmers will be facilitated by close collaboration with AKRSP. Much of the research will be conducted within the framework of current AKRSP activities. With the strong emphasis on "on-farm research", innovations will be communicated directly to farmers.