Tropentag, September 19 - 21, 2012 in Göttingen "Resilience of agricultural systems against crises"

Nomadic Pastoralism in Southern Iran

¹Animal Science Research Institute, Animal By-product, Iran
²International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria
³National Institute for Agricultural Technology (INTA), Animal Production, Argentina

Abstract

The nomadic pastoralist system in Baft district, Kerman province, is well known in Iran for producing cashmere from Raeini goats. However, there is little information on the production system. Interviews were carried out with 30 Siahjel nomad families of Raen origin in proximity of about 20 km to Baft in 2010 to characterize the production system considering family labour force, work sharing, livestock numbers, management and marketing practices, and diseases. The nomads move their livestock over large distances within the rangelands of the region from May to November and the majority migrates to the South during winter and early spring. 87% of nomad families stay and manage their animals together with one or more other related families. All household heads are males, and only 17% are at maximum 30 years old. All family members are involved in raising livestock; male familys member and hired labour dominate the physically harder jobs like shepherding and breeding, and women are involved in milking and caring. 80% of the animals are owned by adult or young males, none by daughters. Siahjel nomads mainly rely on goats and average proportion of goats, sheep and monodactyl per family are 89 %, 8 % and 3 % respectively. Adult breeding females constituted with 44 % the largest group within the goat herds, female yearling, bucks, male yearling constituted 12 %, 8 % and 7 %, respectively. The rationale for keeping a high number of males may be related to their higher production of cashmere. Diseases accounted for 57 % of adult and 88 % of young animal deaths. The most prevalent diseases were enterotoxaemia, foot and mouth disease, pneumonia, agalactia and diarrhoea. Animal sales, meat, cashmere and milk production are the major reasons for keeping goats. Nomads sell their animals directly to abattoirs or butchers whenever cash is needed. While 41 % and 32 % of nomad farmers receive cashmere marketing information from traders and neighbouring farms, 14 % and 13 % of farmers receive their information from livestock associations and markets, respectively. Rangeland is the main source of feeding (85 %), the remaining 15 % are provided by stubble grazing.

Keywords: Livestock, herd management, nomads, products, rangelands

Contact Address: Hamid Reza Ansari-Renani, Animal Science Research Institute, Animal By-product, Dehghaniviall St., 31585-1483 Karadj, Iran, e-mail: ansarirenaniyahoo.com