Grazing reserves in Nigeria: Problems, prospects and policy
implications
Table of Contents
Network Paper No. 22
December 1989
by
S.A. Ingawa, C. Tarawali and R. von Kaufmann
ILCA Subhumid Research Site
PMB 2248, Kaduna, Nigeria
This is a revised version of a paper presented at the National Workshop on Guidelines for
Development of Settlements in Grazing Reserves in Nigeria, Zaranda Hotel, Bauchi State from
29/8 to 1/91988.
INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK CENTRE FOR AFRICA (ILCA)
P.O. Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Tel: 6132 15 Telex: ADDIS 21207
ALPAN - African Livestock Policy Analysis Network
This electronic document has been scanned using optical character recognition (OCR)
software and careful manual recorrection. Even if the quality of digitalisation is high, the FAO
declines all responsibility for any discrepancies that may exist between the present document
and its original printed version.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Historical background
Prevailing problems
Grazing reserve development: Issues and future prospects
Fodder banks and grazing reserves
Conclusions and policy implications
References
 Introduction
1. Grazing Reserves in Nigeria are areas set aside for the use of pastoralists and are intended
to be the foci of livestock development. Grazing reserves resemble group ranches in that both
consist of clearly defined areas of rangeland which provides grazing for determined herds of
livestock (Oxby, 1982a). On group ranches in Kenya pastoralists have a right to land under
national law. In Nigeria, they have not in the past had such rights and grazing reserves more
closely resemble what Oxby (1982a) termed 'grazing blocks'. There are now plans for issuing
30 year leases for parcels of land within the grazing reserves in order to encourage them to
invest in land improvement.
2. The stated purpose of Grazing Reserves is the settlement of 'nomadic' pastoralists; they
offer security of tenure as an inducement to sedentarization through the provision of land for
grazing and permanent water (Suleiman, 1986). Large pieces of land have been demarcated,
some legally sanctioned by order in the Official Gazette and infrastructure, such as dams and
boreholes, constructed. Potential settlers are recruited through the livestock extension service.
3. This paper reviews some problems associated with these reserves and offers suggestions
to make them more productive and relevant to the needs of the intended beneficiaries.
Although based on experience in grazing reserves in the subhumid zone of Nigeria some of
the conclusions should be applicable elsewhere.
 
  
Historical background
4. In Nigeria the practice of preserving land for exclusive use by livestock existed prior to
colonial times. Allocation of grazing grounds to pastoralists around towns and villages for use
particularly during the cultivation season were socially sanctioned (Waters-Bayer and Taylor-
Powell, 1986). However, since there was no legal instrument to prevent encroachment by crop
farmers, such reserved areas subsequently disappeared with increasing population and
cropping intensity.
5. This phenomenon was most visible in the subhumid zone of Nigeria where pastoralists from
the semiarid zone further north traditionally moved to exploit dry-season pastures. Additionally,
improved veterinary services and tsetse control and eradication campaigns have resulted in
an expanding ruminant livestock population in the subhumid zone itself and in restricting
pastoralists' access to the grazing lands (Waters-Bayer and Taylor-Powell, 1986). Combined
with this, the greater preference afforded to local (i.e. subhumid zone) farmers' livestock both
for grazing and water has contributed to the further reduction of the resources available
(Kjenstad, 1988). Conflicts between farmers and pastoralists frequently occurred as a
consequence.
6. The Nigerian Government's Grazing Reserve Act of 1964 was a response to the problem of
alienation of grazing lands increasingly being faced by the pastoral population at the time. In a
broader framework, the law was also taken as one of the policy measures to address some of
the constraints confronting livestock development in Nigeria. Thus, grazing reserves were
established not only to protect grazing lands from crop farming and provide easier access to
them by pastoralists but also to encourage the sedenterization of nomadic/transhumant
pastoralists through legally secure titles to grazing water and, in general, as one means of
promoting livestock development.
7. By 1980 2.3 million ha were acquired as grazing reserves by the northern state
governments (Oxby, 1982b), constituting 10% of the total 22 million ha envisaged under the
Third National Plan (Ministry of Agriculture, 1981). High compensation levels for acquisition of
grazing reserves recommended by the Federal Land Act of 1978 is indicated as a major cause
for the low implementation in establishing grazing reserves. Further, only few of those
established were formally gazetted leaving the original objectives largely unfulfilled (Waters-
Bayer and Taylor-Powell, 1986). In some specific cases, none of the pastoral Fulani
households settled on the reserves were previously nomadic having been residents around the
crop farming villages prior to the establishment of the grazing reserves (see Kjenstad, 1988).
8. Permanent residence of pastoral herds in the subhumid zone is a relatively recent
phenomenon. Various surveys in the 1980s (summarized in Kaufmann and Blench,
forthcoming) have shown that an increasingly large proportion of herders are permanently
resident in the zone throughout the year. Ecological and social conditions in the subhumid
zone are very different from those further north, and pastoralists are still in the process of
adapting to these new challenges. A consequence of this situation relevant to development
planning is that many assumptions about pastoralists' strategies derived from studies in the
semi-arid zone must be modified.
  
  
Prevailing problems
Ecology
9. The subhumid zone is characterized by a rainfall of 900-1500 mm and a growing period of
180 to 270 days. The soils are generally luvisols low in carbon and nitrogen with poor
drainage and cation exchange capacity. They tend to form a hard crust, making manual land
preparation laborious. Erosion caused by continuous cultivation and over-grazing often leads
to rangelands with bare soils.
10. The herbaceous cover in range areas consists mainly of species of Loudetia, Hyparrhenia,
Brachiarria and Andropogon. Even though the rainfall and radiation could support high dry
matter yields, fodder is actually low in quantity and quality due to the poor soils. Even in the
wet season, maximum productivity in the Kachia grazing reserve 120 km south east of
Kaduna, for example, is very low (2250 kg/ha) (Mohamed-Saleem, 1986). Although the more
fertile inland valley (fadama) soils may yield dry matter up to 5 tons/ha, they are much less
abundant and are increasingly used for cropping.
11. The accepted minimum 7.5% crude protein required in ruminant diets is only available for
four months of the year and even then digestibility of the natural forage is low. The ligneous
browse (mainly Afzelia africana, Khaya senegalensis, Adenodolichos paniculata and Daniella
oliveri), although nutritious, does not provide sufficient bulk to make up the deficit. These
limited forage resources are depleted by accidental and deliberate fires. Herds must be
seasonally moved out of the grazing reserves to exploit crop residues in neighbouring farmers'
fields. Apart from these short-distance movements, some pastoralists with home bases on
grazing reserves still practice transhumance. In the subhumid zone, where adequate fodder is
generally not available from range resources, such movements depend on the goodwill
established between arable farmers and pastoralists.
The social context
12. The cultivators among whom the pastoralists now live were traditionally subsistence
farmers with extensive swidden (slash and burn) agriculture. They kept very few livestock,
mostly small trypanotolerant breeds of goats and sheep. Although sleeping-sickness is
generally cited as the reason for the sparse population of the zone, it is now recognized that
the high labour inputs required for cultivation also deterred settlement. Farming systems are
marked by a wide diversity of crops and crop mixtures, often combining cereals, grain
legumes and tubers. Compared with the humid and semiarid zones, regional marketing and
long-distance trade were poorly developed.
13. An unfortunate consequence of this situation is that all the most fertile pockets of land in
the zone have been occupied. Grazing reserves cannot be sited in populated regions without
dislocation of indigenous populations and consequent ill-will. Reserves are necessarily
situated in places previously avoided for sound ecological reasons. As an illustration of this,
when ILCA tried to keep cattle permanently on Kachia reserve without supplementation,
almost half the animals suffered severe malnutrition stress because of insufficient and low
quality feed that resulted from the poor nature of the soils.
14. The pastoralists are primarly livestock rearers and usually only plant small fields of
cereals, often with hired labour, to supplement the household food supply. With rare
exceptions the pastoralists outside the grazing reserves do not 'own' land and must borrow it
from local farmers. Since marginal land fallow is widely available, and some agronomic
benefits may accrue from manure, farmers have generally been willing to enter these
arrangements. However, long residence does not imply ownership, and recently, with poor
relations between the two communities and a growing population, farmers have been
requesting the return of their land. In the same way as farmers, some wealthier Fulbe have
been able to obtain 'Certificates of Occupancy' issued by Local and State Governments, but
these are not generally available.
15. Whether on or off the grazing reserves the pastoralists do not generate enough crop
residues to feed their cattle. The relative value attached to farmers' residues corresponds to
the variation in systems of payment for their use by pastoralists. These range from zero
payment to situations where bookings are made by pastoralists with farmers well in advance of
harvest and payments in cash or kind deposited to ensure access. In the vicinity of the Kachia
grazing reserve, there are as yet no cash payments by pastoralists to farmers for crop residue
grazing. However, in the more arid parts of northern Nigeria, it is already common; for
example, in Kashere, Kombani and Ladongor areas of Bauchi State and the Katsina environs
(Ingawa, 1987). In the Abet area, near to the Kachia grazing reserve, in the 1982 and 1983
dry seasons some farmers tried to obtain cash payments from Fulbe for allowing cattle to
graze their residues (Powell, 1986).
  
  
Grazing reserve development: Issues and future prospects
Planning and investment policy
16. In the past grazing reserve development has, typically, relied heavily on building
infrastructure such as roads, dams and milk collection centres. In 1986, a typical reserve may
involve costs of the following order:
Item Naira
Roads and firebreaks 90,000
Water development 120,000
Housing and buildings 260,000
Stock handling facilities 30,000
Office equipment 5,000
Pasture improvement 400,000
Tractors and equipment 60,000
Motor vehicles 35,000
Total infrastructure costs 1,000,000
Source: NLPD records
One US $ = 7.8 Naira
17. Broadly speaking, neither pastoralists nor neighbouring farmers have been appreciative of
these developments because they have not been accompanied by improvements at the herd
level. All the amenities are as accessible to people off the reserves as those on. Some of the
facilities are not very practical. For example, the use of milk collection centres implies higher
processing costs in maintaining the higher hygiene standards required for handling fresh milk
that will not be immediately consumed. There will also be opportunity costs due to the loss of
the traditionally accompanying enterprise of selling processed cereal foods that are mixed with
sour milk just before consumption. Moreover, because of transportation and handling costs the
milk collection centres have rarely been able to offer prices as high as those in local markets.
The pastoralists' response has been to retain their capacity to move away and not invest
heavily in specific residential sites.
18. Neighbouring communities of cultivators often perceive reserves as fallow land 'belonging'
to them, for the use of expanding future populations, from which they have been
disenfranchised. If they could perceive the benefits in terms of overall land use they may be
more understanding. The farmers can appreciate the value of manure especially to crops such
as ginger which require high levels of organic matter. In the Abet area, at one field day where
arable farmers were able to see the increased yields of crops grown in fodder banks led to
much greater interest in the adoption of forage interventions to improve crop yields and small
ruminant productivity. The opportunity to exploit the cattle owners' much larger capital base to
invest in land improvement and items such as fencing for mutual benefit could be appreciated
once the fear of crop damage is removed.
19. For grazing reserves to develop effectively they must be integrated with the broader social
and economic environment, particularly as livestock producers depend on cooperation with
cultivators. Settled pastoralists need markets for sale of their products and purchase of
household goods and farm inputs. Almost all sedentary pastoralists grow subsistence crops
and they often hire labour for crop production. Unfortunately, reserves have all too often been
planned as exclusion zones to separate the two communities, in part because of the belief that
the primary need was to preserve land from arable encroachment 1. The consequence has
often been to exacerbate rather than alleviate inter-community tensions.
1 Grazing Reserves developed out of Forest Reserves, which were set up in the colonial era, and were
intended to conserve woodland resources.
20. Apart from land tenure, the most pressing issues are thus feed security (from the point of
view of livestock producers) and some more positive agronomic benefits (from the point of
view of cultivators outside the reserves). At a technical level, the most urgent priority is
developing a convincing low-input package to improve livestock feed resources appropriate to
the socioeconomic context.
Security of tenure
21. Tensions easily rise around grazing reserves where an indigenous population's land has
been excised without due compensation. Farmers become antagonistic to projects and try to
harass the settled pastoralists. Their antagonism surfaces in an increase in court cases
relating to crop damage and disputes over land deemed to be within the reserve. In Kachia in
the early 1980s, crop damage rather than land disputes predominated (Waters-Bayers and
Taylor-Powell, 1986), but recently other types of cases are being brought to court (Kjenstad,
1988).
22. This type of uncertainty, as well as the poor forage, does not make the reserve an
attractive place. Over the decade from 1978 only 34 households settled on Kachia reserve, an
area of over 30,000 ha., despite a capital investment estimated at close to 1m naira. There is
a further somewhat ironic feature that none of the pastoralists who have settled in Kachia
grazing reserves were previously nomadic. All of them have been living in the Kachia area for
generations and simply relocated a few miles to the reserve. Their motive was greater security
of tenure, basing their action on assurances that the grazing reserve "belongs to the Fulani"
(Waters-Bayer and Taylor-Powell, 1986).
Feed security
23. Improving feed resources in West African rangelands is not simple. Nzamane (1984) ruled
out the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer on native grasses because of its high cost and the
problems of land preparation. As legumes can fix soil nitrogen through the activity of nodule
bacteria, they could be introduced into rangeland pastures to correct their nitrogen deficiency.
However, legumes are in turn dependent on phosphate fertiliser, and they tend to have
adverse effects on range ecology by encouraging low-quality nitrophilous plant species.
24. Bayer et al. (1984) proposed that grazing reserves be used for wet season grazing and
cropping by pastoralists, and remain as dry season residences for only part of the family and
herd. Animals left in the reserves during the dry season could be supported by small strategic
legume pastures (fodder banks). ILCA has been working with fodder banks since 1981.
25. Forage legumes offer the best means presently available for alleviating the poor soil and
dry season nutritional deficiencies in cattle. However, forage production packages must take
into account economic and ecological constraints such as seasonal bottlenecks on labour
availability, accidental fires, land tenure and the poor soils. To succeed, control of each unit
must be vested in the individual herd owners who are expected to benefit from them.
  
  
Fodder banks and grazing reserves
26. ILCA considered these points in designing and testing various low input techniques for the
establishment of legume pastures. The standard fodder bank is a 4 ha. area of fenced pasture
sown with Stylosanthes hamata cv. Verano. Details of fodder bank establishment methods
can be found in Otsyina et al (1987).
27. In addition to ILCA, several other agencies, including a UNDP supported grazing reserve
development project, have conducted applied research on this topic. In an effort to improve
the feed resources available to settled pastoralists in the Wawa Zange and Wase grazing
reserves in Bauchi and Plateau States of central Nigeria respectively, Santhirasegaram (1984)
tried three models involving mixtures of Andropogon gayanus and Stylosanthes hamata cv.
Verano in rotation with crops. Range management officers in Keana and Awe grazing
reserves, Plateau State, established 1 ha units of Stylosanthes pastures using a tractor in
1981 (Mohamed-Saleem, 1987).
28. The package for establishing and managing fodder banks has been adopted for replication
by the National Livestock Projects Division. To date over 175 fodder banks have been
established in the country, and most of these are outside grazing reserves. Given security of
tenure the prospects for the increased adoption of fodder banks look promising. The evidence
available suggests that mixed farmers who have more secure land rights have been much
more ready to adopt fodder bank technology (Ingawa et al, 1988). Funds for future grazing
reserve expansion are available under the Second Livestock Development Project.
29. Forage legumes can also be used to promote crop production of the grain and crop
residue yields. In trials, cereals planted after a phase of improved pasture yields were nearly
double those on natural fallow. The labour required for ridging "fodder bank soils" is also lower
than that for a natural fallow (Tarawali et al., 1987). Integrating legume pastures with cropping
thereby reduces the need for chemical fertilisers and labour per unit harvested. Greater yields
do require more labour at harvest but that is a tolerable problem.
30. This type of integrated pasture-crop production could be introduced most readily where
pastoralists are already cropping on the reserves. Apart from the benefit to themselves, this
would demonstrate yield advantages to farmers off the reserve as well, thereby encouraging
them to provide fallow land on loan to landless pastoralists for pasture development. Since
30% of cropland should be fallow at any one time the potential off the reserves is substantially
greater. Altough grazing reserves have a vital role to play in introducing innovations, they
cannot be expected to meet the needs of all the pastoralists in Nigeria.
31. On the other hand, since over 50% of the dry matter produced from cropping, as well as
the weeds on fallow and crop fields can only be turned into human food by ruminants, it would
appear perverse to waste them by denying access to livestock. Grazing reserves should thus
have two primary functions:
i. To set aside land for the use of small-scale livestock producers willing to test
interventions supported by government livestock departments. In this way they
can present a model of crop-livestock integration to be replicated beyond the
reserve.
ii. To secure grazing areas where cattle can be separated from crops at critical
times of the year without otherwise isolating them. This could potentially include
cattle belonging to cultivators thus promoting the integration of the communities.
This would facilitate the continuation of the practice of utilising all available crop
residue and minimise the sources of friction between farmers and cattle owners. It
will also allow far more pastoralists to benefit from the expenditure on grazing
reserves than if the herds are expected to be resident year round in the reserves.
  
  
Conclusions and policy implications
32. The paper reviewed the present position of grazing reserves in terms of their objectives
and suggested steps to meet more closely these objectives. The evidence presented suggests
that there are two key elements in encouraging the sedentarization of pastoralists: feed
security and unambiguous land tenure.
33. Strategic reasons would strongly suggest that the grazing reserves be utilized:
· to provide test sites for evolving viable production systems from interventions in
pastoral development;
· to provide pastoralists with grazing areas to which they could withdraw their
livestock when farmers' crops are at vulnerable growth stages;
· to support the exploitation of the resources available in the two systems for the
mutual benefit of crop farmers and pastoralists by not treating the grazing
reserves as enclosures permanently separating the pastoralists and their cattle
from cultivators.
34. For tactical reasons priority should be given to settling the prevailing land tenure (e.g.
through certificates of occupancy or long-term leases) and feed security (e.g fodder banks)
problems.
35. In all cases it is clear that the first priority is consultation, sensitivity to local issues and
coherent extension advice rather than continued emphasis on infrastructure. There may be a
need for small-scale credit in the initial stages of pasture improvement to encourage adoption
of the techniques. However, the costs of this will be negligible compared to the costs of heavy
plant to clear land and put in dams and boreholes. If the physical developments are phased in
line with settlement and land improvement in the reserves there will be higher returns to that
investment.
36. Improved pastures should be integrated with cropping because it is technically necessary
and will promote mutuality between arable farmers and settled pastoralists. The grazing
reserves should be used to demonstrate concepts appropriate to the majority of pastoralists
who will continue to reside off the reserves amongst farming communities.
37. If grazing reserves are to succeed, they should not be conceptualised as creating the
opportunity to create small ranches or mixed farms. They must be a part of districtwide land
use plans, intended to encourage integration of cattle enterprises into the overall economy.
Clearly demarcated areas within the reserves should be allocated to specific households with
a certificate of occupancy to guarantee their right for cropping and strategic fodder
development. They should be a focus of low-input technology directed towards improving the
productivity of the resources available to small and medium-sized herd owners.
38. The implications for government policy which emerge from the above discussion can be
summarized as follows:
i. government investment will need to move away from costly and bulky
development of physical infrastructure on grazing reserves to a more phased
development which can be undertaken by the producers themselves; in this
connection, credit policy needs to be re-oriented to support the adoption of small-
scale technology by both pastoralists and crop farmers.
ii. government policy should be reoriented to the development of integrated
crop/livestock systems mutually benefitting pastoralists and crop farmers.
Research and extension services should be geared into supporting such
integration.
iii. land tenure policy should be reviewed to accommodate such integration by
offering secure land rights which will induce settler pastoralists to invest in land
improvement for livestock as well as crop production.
  
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