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Article

Declines in Livestock Numbers Accompany Cropping Deagrarianisation Processes in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

by
Charlie Shackleton
* and
Monde Ntshudu
Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, Makhanda 6140, South Africa
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Land 2023, 12(9), 1735; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12091735
Submission received: 14 August 2023 / Revised: 29 August 2023 / Accepted: 5 September 2023 / Published: 6 September 2023
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Abstract

:
Deagrarianisation amongst smallholder farmers is a growing phenomenon globally, driven by a complex array of context-specific and higher-scale factors. Most research has focused on declines in arable cropping, with relatively little regard to the deagrarianisation dynamics associated with livestock ownership, yet the two are often linked through the need for draught power for ploughing. Here, we report on a survey of 293 rural households in 10 rural villages in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa, where we ascertained whether ownership of cattle, goats, sheep and pigs had changed over the previous 15 years and what were the underlying reasons for any changes at both village- and household-scale. The majority felt that there had been a decline in the number of households keeping livestock and the number of animals in the village. Additionally, a clear majority of owners for each type of livestock stated that their households currently have fewer animals than 15 years ago. The main reasons for declines were that their animals had died due to drought or disease, theft, or they had sold them because of financial needs. There was a positive association between the keeping of cattle and field cultivation. Despite these general declines, two-thirds of households currently without livestock wished that they had some, primarily for use in cultural ceremonies/rituals or for income. This study shows the deagrarianisation processes in the region also apply to the livestock sector despite the significance of livestock in the local Xhosa culture. This study highlights the multifaceted nature of deagrarianisation in communal tenure systems.

1. Introduction

Deagrarianisation is a globally widespread process [1,2,3] whereby there is a net decline over time in the contribution of agricultural production to rural livelihoods and income [4]. This livelihood change typically translates into shifts in rural and agrarian identities and customs [5]. Deagrarianisation is driven by a complex suite of local-, national- and international-scale phenomena [6]. Overarching national-scale ones include an ageing farming workforce, rural youth seeking more secure and remunerative opportunities in urban settings, and the limited status accorded to farming as an occupation [7,8]. However, at a household scale, patterns of engagement or disengagement with agricultural livelihood strategies over time are heterogeneous and a function of the livelihood assets available to individual families [9,10]. Thus, it is not a linear, predictable process [11], although when aggregated at higher spatial scales, it becomes so. Whatever the reasons driving deagrarianisation at a given place, a growing number of case studies are revealing a range of social, economic and ecological changes and consequences [6,12,13].
The contribution of agriculture to employment, national GDP and household well-being is greater in regions of the Global South than in the Global North. Hence, there is a significant need to understand the rates, drivers and consequences of deagrarianisation in these regions to avoid negative implications for household and national food security, employment and incomes. However, some Global South regions or countries are particularly challenging contexts in which to study agriculture and deagrarianisation because of the dichotomous nature of the agricultural production sector, as observed in parts of Latin America [14], sub-Saharan Africa [15] and SE Asia [16]. South Africa fits this model, with a large, modern, commercial farming sector on private lands [17] on the one hand that is juxtaposed with smallholder and subsistence producers on tribal or communal tenure lands on the other [18], most of whom have insufficient land or inputs to meet their own food needs [18]. With this sort of juxtaposition, the dynamics in the smallholder sector may affect significant numbers of people yet often have a limited effect on national agricultural output. For example, at a national scale, South Africa is a net food exporter, and yet hunger and undernutrition are rife [19]. Thus, disengagement from agricultural activities by smallholder and subsistence farmers has limited effect on the national production and export values but has the potential to increase the already high level of hunger and undernutrition (unless compensated by other income sources that will allow households to purchase foods from retail outlets). Yet, at national scales, growing human populations and, for many countries, a declining value of the national currency make the transition to a net food importing country a risky future [20]. In South Africa, there is an additional layer of complexity presented by the historical and continuing racial inequalities in land access and ownership, which spill over into national policies and support for different farming sectors [21].
Despite these concerns about food security, deagrarianisation processes are well advanced in the communal land areas of South Africa [6,7,22], particularly in the Eastern Cape [6,23,24], which is the poorest province in South Africa. Of the 17 empirical studies summarised by Shackleton et al. [6], 15 showed a net decline in the area of fields cultivated over the study period. A wide variety and complex mix of social, economic and environmental drivers have been identified by previous researchers across different sites, including loss of family labour due to the introduction of compulsory schooling from the mid-1990s and significant migration to urban centres, insufficient funds to fence fields or hire a herder to keep raiding livestock away, death or theft of cattle required for ploughing, changing aspirations of the youth making many disinterested in farming as a future, and government social grant payments to poor households allegedly decreasing reliance on own household food production, to mention a few [23,24,25,26,27].
Several studies [25,28,29,30,31] mention a changing relationship with livestock as one of the oft-mentioned reasons for the decline in field cultivation. The first relates to the previous use of oxen by most households to plough fields. However, it is reported that the number of cattle has declined since the late 1990s following the demise of the government-sponsored dipping programme against various tick-borne diseases [32,33], along with a rise in the incidence of cattle theft [25,29]. This decline in cattle numbers, therefore, compromised the ability of many households to plough fields, eventually leading to them abandoning the cultivation of fields. Much of the abandonment of field cultivation occurred during the late-1900s and early 2020s, soon after the political transition in the country and the demise of the cattle dipping programme [24,25], although it is ongoing. Government efforts at providing tractors for ploughing have been unsuccessful for a number of reasons, including not being able to work on steep terrain, not being able to accommodate peak demand at the onset of the rainy season and hijacking of the tractor services by local elites [30]. The second relates to the high incidence of fields being damaged by untended livestock. A generation ago, young and teenage boys would act as herders and keep livestock away from arable lands during the cropping season. However, with the introduction of compulsory education, young boys are now at school and can no longer fulfil what used to be their traditional herding duties [29,30]. This transfers the onus for crop protection from livestock owners to cultivators, either through fencing their fields or hiring a guard to keep wandering livestock away, which most cannot afford, leading to a cessation of field cultivation. This may be compensated to some degree using more intensive cultivation of household or kitchen gardens adjacent to the home [31,34,35] because they are cheaper to fence (because of their small size) and easier to guard against theft and livestock (due to the proximity to the homestead).
A further consequence of the demise of the government-sponsored cattle dipping program is that there are no longer any records of livestock ownership at household and village levels. Thus, it is not possible to verify how widespread is the decline in cattle numbers as reported from a few scattered empirical studies, the extent of such declines, and whether they have continued post the early to mid-2000s. Consequently, its role in the ongoing deagrarianisation cannot be fully assessed. If there has been a widespread decline in numbers, it would add another facet to the deagrarianisation narrative that would have to be considered in any strategies or programmes to halt or reverse deagrarianisation. However, the strong cultural dimensions of cattle ownership amongst the amaXhosa people of the Eastern Cape province [36] may mean that there are only limited changes in cattle numbers and ownership, hence having little role in the declining rates of field cultivation. Within this context of two potentially opposing dynamics, deagrarianisation and cultural affinity, the objective of this study was to determine if the numbers of cattle have declined over the recent past in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa, and if they have, have there been a compensatory increase in ownership of smaller livestock types (in a manner akin to more intensive use of home gardens to compensate to some degree for loss of fields)? In the absence of any official records of livestock numbers, we undertook a survey of rural households in ten villages to ask about ownership patterns of livestock and whether the numbers had changed over the last 15 years.

2. Subject of Research and Methodology

2.1. Study Area

The Eastern Cape was selected for this study because it has a large smallholder farming sector operating on communal lands and because deagrarianisation processes are well advanced [6,23,24]. Spanning 169,580 km2, the Eastern Cape is the second-largest province in South Africa, which underpins its biophysical heterogeneity. The topography ranges from the extensive coastline along the Indian Ocean up to mountain ranges of almost 3000 m above sea level. Mean annual rainfall varies from less than 300 mm in the northwest to over 1200 mm in the northeast. The biomes and vegetation types are aligned along two intersecting gradients. The first is an altitudinal gradient from the coast inland. The second is a climatic gradient from one dominated by mostly winter rainfall (May–September) in the west to one that is exclusively summer rainfall (October–April) in the east. The coastal zone is mostly a mosaic of grasslands and forests of the Indian Ocean Coastal belt biome. The central zone is dominated by fynbos in the west, giving way to relatively dry thickets and, ultimately, grasslands moving eastwards. The most inland regions of the province are characterised by montane grasslands with small patches of afromontane forests in the valleys [37].
The Eastern Cape has a population of approximately 6.6 million people, of which 38% live in urban centres. It is regarded as the poorest province in the country. However, the economy of the rural areas of the province is dichotomous. On the one hand, there is a well-developed, privately owned, commercial farming sector based largely on livestock, game, citrus and timber plantations. On the other, there is a smallholder sector in the communal areas (tribal lands of the former homelands during the apartheid regime). Here, land is owned by the state and administered by traditional authorities. Usufruct rights are allocated to individual households for housing and arable fields, and the rest is used for communal grazing and collection of wild resources such as firewood, building timber, wild foods, traditional medicines and more. Poverty is rife in these areas as a result of the low education levels, limited job opportunities, inadequate services, skills migration and insufficient land allocations for commercial farming. It is the smallholder or subsistence sector that was the focus of our study.

2.2. Methods

Ten rural villages were selected in the communal areas of the Eastern Cape province (Figure 1) across the prevailing gradients in altitude and vegetation types. Otherwise, villages were selected on the basis of ease of accessibility and linking roads and willingness to permit the research team access for the short survey.
Each village was roughly divided into three sections to avoid concentration in a specific part of the village. Within each section of a village, residents were approached opportunistically and invited to respond to the questionnaire. There were between 19 and 42 samples per village, varying according to the availability of respondents and the mean duration of the questionnaire, with a total sample of 293 households. The time per questionnaire ranged between 15 and 90 min, depending on whether a household had livestock or not, and if they did, how many different types (cattle, goats, sheep, pigs). The questionnaire was composed of 29 questions divided into four sections (see Supplementary Materials). The first section asked the respondent to consider the village as a whole and reflect on whether the number of households owning each livestock type had changed over the last 15 years and, if so, the possible reasons. They were also asked the same with respect to the numbers of different livestock types in the village as a whole. The second section dealt with whether their household had livestock or not. If they did, then questions addressed the numbers of each type, changes over the last 15 years, reasons for keeping, mode of acquisition of the first ones, and whether or not they ever sell livestock. The third section was for households that did not have any livestock, asking why they did not, whether they used to keep livestock, and if so, why they no longer did. We also asked if they aspire to own livestock. The last section captured the socio-economic profile of respondents via variables such as age, gender, household size, home language, education, income, and length of residency in the village. The study design and questionnaire were approved by the Human Ethics Committee of Rhodes University (No. 2021-5264-6291).
Data were entered into MS Excel for cleaning and summarisation. Chi-squared tests were run in Statistica v14 (Tibco Software Inc., Palo Alto, CA, USA) to assess some associations of interest. The first was to ascertain if there were gender differences in livestock ownership to give insight into the dynamics of who owns and who does not. The second was to examine if there was any relationship between ownership of cattle and cultivation of a field because prior studies on declines in field cropping in the region reported that one of the reasons was the loss of draught power provided by oxen due to declines in livestock numbers.

3. Results

3.1. Profile of Respondents

The age of respondents ranged from 19 to 89 years, with a mean of 51 ± 16 years. Most had lived their whole life in the village where they were sampled, with a mean residency of 42 ± 18 years. There were slightly more females (55.5%) than males (44.5%) in the sample. The mean household size was 5.2 ± 2.9 persons (comprising 2.8 females and 2.4 males). Levels of formal education were low, with 27.6% having none or only primary schooling and 18.7% having a school leaving certificate or some post-schooling qualification; the majority (54.1%) had some secondary schooling but had not completed it. Ninety-five per cent stated that their home language was IsiXhosa. The main source of household cash income was government social grants (61.5% of households), followed by salaries (26.1%) and other (12.4%). Most households received an estimated income of less than R6000 per month (USD388 at the time of fieldwork). Nearly all households (88.8%) maintained a home plot where they cultivated maize and vegetables, but only 11% cultivated a field. However, of those households not cultivating a field, slightly more than half (52.2%) used to in the past; 51.5% had ceased cultivating their field in the last ten years, 30.8% between ten and twenty years ago, and 17.6% more than 20 years ago.

3.2. Village-Scale Perceptions of Changes in Livestock

Most of the respondents felt that the number of households keeping livestock had declined in the previous 15 years, especially in relation to cattle (Table 1). However, 57% felt that the number of households keeping sheep had increased. The same pattern was echoed in reflections about the number of animals, with most households saying that the number of cattle had declined, as had goats and pigs, but the number of sheep had increased. Declines in the number of cattle were attributed mostly to drought, death (due to drought or disease) or theft (Table 1). In contrast, there was a lot of uncertainty about why the number of goats had declined, with many respondents saying they did not know why and with multiple reasons provided (including disease, drought and theft). The decline in the number of pigs was ascribed to disease, which corresponds with periodic outbreaks of swine flu. For those feeling that the number of sheep had declined, the most common reasons given were theft, disease, or unknown.
Allied to the perceptions of a general decline in the number of households with livestock and the number of livestock (other than sheep) was also a general perception of a decline in the state or condition of the communal rangelands. Over three-quarters (78.1%) of respondents said that the state of the grazing lands had changed over the last 15 years, and of these, 82.0% said that the condition had deteriorated. The five most common reasons for the perceived deterioration were drought (36.4% of responses), fires (15.3%), grazing areas lost to housing (15.3%), the generally hot and dry environment (11.4%) and overgrazing (3.4%). Of the small minority who stated that the condition of the rangelands had improved, 85.7% ascribed it to good rains over the period, which is contrary to the widespread perception of drought and dry conditions.

3.3. Household-Scale Experiences of Changes in Livestock Numbers

Across the sample, more than half (57.1%) of households owned one or more types of livestock, whilst 42.9% did not have any. Slightly less than one-third of households kept cattle, goats or pigs, with fewer households keeping sheep (Table 2). Amongst owning households, 38.1% kept only a single type of livestock, 36.8% kept two types, 18.7% kept three and 6.4% kept all four types. Significantly more male respondent households (65.0%) had livestock than female respondent ones (51.3%) (χ2 = 5.13; p < 0.05).
A clear majority of owners for each type of livestock stated that their households currently have fewer animals than they did 15 years ago. This was most marked for cattle (83%) and sheep (70%) owners. However, between 14 and 33% stated that they had more than 15 years ago, showing a dynamic situation. It is noteworthy that only two households keeping cattle listed using draught power as the primary reason for keeping them, although several listed draught power as a secondary reason for keeping cattle. Thus, there was a positive association between field cultivation and keeping of cattle, with 88% of field cultivators also keeping cattle, whereas only 48% of non-cultivators did so (χ2 = 9.73; p < 0.005). More than 70% of owners with goats or cattle listed traditional ceremonies as the main reasons for having them (Figure 2), although a host of secondary reasons were also listed, such as income, savings, and ploughing. In contrast, pigs were maintained mostly for their meat, whilst a variety of reasons were provided for keeping sheep.

3.4. Households without Livestock

Of the households without any livestock at the time of the survey, 69.2% used to keep one or more types. According to the responses, there was a large disengagement from keeping cattle in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which was also evident for goats (Figure 3). In contrast, the decline in the keeping of pigs and sheep seems to be more recent.
A variety of reasons were provided as to why they no longer keep livestock (Table 3), with many respondents providing more than one reason. The three most mentioned reasons for all but pigs were that the animals died, were stolen, or the household sold them. More than half the respondents listed “other” for pigs, which relates to a government programme to cull pigs due to an outbreak of swine flu.
Of the households currently without any livestock, two-thirds (68.3%) wished that they did have some. The three most cited reasons for wanting livestock were for ceremonies/rituals (37.0%), to generate income (33.0%) and because the respondent simply liked having livestock (11.1%). Of those who did not wish to have any livestock, the primary reason was fear of them being stolen (50%), followed by the respondent being too old to look after them and not having anybody else in the household who could do so (40%).

4. Discussion

This study examined the change in ownership and number of cattle and small livestock in a sample of villages across the communal areas of the Eastern Cape province. Both perceptions of what had happened at a village scale and experiences at a household scale indicated that both the number of households with cattle and the number of cattle had declined over the last 15 years. For example, amongst the current households with cattle, 83% said that they had fewer now than 15 years ago. Nearly half of those who used to keep cattle in the past but no longer did so attributed it to their animals having died and them not having the means or interest in replacing them. Other previous owners of cattle had sold them when the household needed cash (15%), suffered them being stolen (13%), or there was nobody to look after them (12%). The high proportion indicating that their animals had died indicates the precarious nature of animal husbandry in a region with frequent droughts and pervasive tick-borne diseases [38,39]. Thus, our broader-scale survey corroborates smaller empirical studies that have reported either respondents’ sentiments of declines in cattle numbers and ownership [25,29] or actual declines based on counts of animals at different time points [24,40]. Moreover, of those respondents who had given up keeping cattle, most did so during the 1990s, followed by the early 2000s, which mirrors the period of peak abandonment of field cultivation reported in previous studies [24,25]. However, respondents in our study indicated that the abandonment of field cultivation was mostly later, with 52% reported having done so in the last ten years. Yet, broadly speaking, the decline in cattle numbers coincides to a large extent with the decline in field cropping observed in previous studies, clearly implicating the loss or decline in cattle numbers with the deagrarianisation dynamics. Longitudinal studies would provide more precise information regarding the timing and actual numbers (rather than recall) and need to be encouraged for a more insightful understanding of livelihoods and deagrarianisation dynamics in the area.
The decline in livestock numbers and farming is not unique to the Eastern Cape province or South Africa. For example, Bilewicz and Bukraba-Rylska [13] describe how specialisation, driven by modernisation and European Union policies, resulted in a decline in small-scale livestock farming in Poland in favour of a focus on crop farming. A similar dynamic was reported by Delgardo-Viñas [41] in the Cantabria region of Spain, where there was a decline in the number of cattle and the number of farms with livestock. This was attributed to a number of interacting factors operating at various scales, including quotas set by the European Union, a decrease in agricultural labour due to urbanisation and the increasing importance of other sectors, such as tourism, in the rural areas. The trajectory in Mixteca Alta, Mexico, is more akin to the South African case because the land tenure system is common property [14]. The broad interacting factors were urbanisation, which led to a decline in the number of farmers and labourers in the area, along with intensification of production methods in an attempt to remain financially viable. The intensification led to the substitution of draught power provided by livestock by mechanisation. Hence, cattle were no longer needed, and numbers dwindled. As did the number of goats, but sheep increased as they were deemed to be easier to maintain. The smaller numbers of cultivated farms and browsing pressure by livestock in the common lands resulted in the transformation of grasslands and open areas to more wooded vegetation types, further restricting the amount of forage available for livestock. This case example raises the question of what happens to communal grazing areas as livestock numbers decline. There has been some work in South Africa on secondary succession in abandoned fields [25,42], but this has not yet been linked to changes in grazing or browsing dynamics resulting from declines in livestock numbers.
The significance of cattle for field cultivation was highlighted by Fischer and Hadju [30] in that households with cattle are able to plough their fields soon after the onset of the summer rains. In contrast, households without cattle have to wait until owning households have ploughed their own fields before hiring out their team of oxen to non-owning households. They also reported that the decline in cattle numbers and owning households meant that it was harder for non-owning households to procure ploughing services because there were fewer teams [30], leading to competition for their services in the short window after the onset of the rains. In our results, cultivating households were almost twice as likely to keep cattle than non-cultivating ones and previous researchers have reported that cultivating households have more cattle than non-cultivating ones [25,30]. Despite this, more than 80% of respondents stated that the primary reason for keeping cattle was not for draught power but for traditional ceremonies. Obviously, the significance of cattle in providing multiple functions and benefits [43], including as a means of saving and their usefulness in providing draught, was also valued. However, their importance in Xhosa spirituality was paramount, as reported by previous researchers [29,36]. Nevertheless, less than 30% of households surveyed actually kept any cattle. Many households also kept goats primarily for ritual purposes. Amongst households in our sample currently without livestock, two-thirds aspired to own livestock, and the most-cited reason was for ceremonies/rituals. This indicates the vital contribution of livestock to local identity, but increasingly, animals required for ceremonial or ritual purposes are purchased when necessary.
One significant ceremony related to the ownership of livestock is the exchange of gifts between families of an engaged couple, a common practice throughout southern Africa [44]. Traditionally, cattle were the medium of exchange from the groom’s family to the bride’s family (bridal dowry; “lobola” in isiXhosa). However, several authors have commented on how this is changing depending on a household’s access to cattle and how traditional they are, such that increasingly cash, material goods or small-stock (or some combination of these, with or without cattle) are provided as the lobola given by the groom’s family [45,46]. Even if cattle are not provided as the lobola transfer, the value of the lobola is still often stated as the value of an equivalent number of cattle [46]. We did not ask about lobola specifically, but the sampled areas are some of the most rural and traditional in South Africa, and the gifting of cattle or goats for lobola is still a common practice in the broader region. This would have been included under the banner of ‘ceremonies’ in our results. Consequently, a decline in the number of households with cattle may well play along with or accelerate the use of other mediums of lobola exchanges, but this needs further research. This may also link to the gendered dimensions of livestock ownership. In Xhosa culture, decisions and concerns relating to cattle are traditionally the domain of males in the household, whereas those relating to small-stock may be the purview of females in the household or any adult members [36]. Our results show this, with 65% of owning households being male-headed.
The findings with respect to small-stock largely mirrored those for cattle in that a majority of respondents felt that the number of households in the village owning small-stock and also the numbers of animals in the village had decreased, except for sheep. Those households currently keeping small-stock corroborated this, with a majority saying that the number of animals they currently kept was less than the number they had 15 years ago. These findings indicate that there was no evident compensation for the decline in cattle ownership and numbers via the acquisition of small-stock. The reasons underlying reductions in the numbers of goats and sheep mirror those for cattle, although the proportions citing theft and sale were higher. The numbers of pigs fluctuate over time in relation to outbreaks of swine flu and subsequent government response of culling them.
No explicit link was made between the declines in livestock numbers and the perceived deterioration in the quality of the communal rangelands. Almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents felt that the condition of the communal rangelands had declined over the last 15 years, although we were unable to independently verify this, and 15 years is probably too short a time frame for such a change. They attributed this to a variety of factors, including drought, wildfires, land transformation to built infrastructure, and overgrazing. It is likely that some of these will work in tandem, such as wildfires and overgrazing being exacerbated by drought conditions. Respondents in the Herd-Hoare and Shackleton [39] study in the Eastern Cape also perceived a decline in the condition of their rangelands, which they attributed to the injudicious use of fire, which echoes the work of Kepe and Scoones [47] reporting how different fires regimes (and in combination with different grazing intensities) have altered the dominance of particular grass species, often in favour of less palatable ones. These changes have been ongoing for a lot longer than the 15-year window used in our study [47]. However, Kepe [48] also describes how local communities use fire as a tool to promote a flush of green grass in the dry season (especially in grasslands dominated by unpalatable species) and to control ticks. In contrast, other studies in the same region have reported a reduction in the use of fire as a management tool, resulting in increases in invasive species as well as expansion of indigenous forests at the expense of grasslands [29,49].
The finding that close to 70% of households without livestock at the time of our survey used to keep some in the past further strengthens the deagrarianisation narrative. Previous work has alluded to the loss of cattle, resulting in a household losing the means to plough and, hence, abandoned field cultivation [24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]. Our results confirm that the numbers of cattle, goats, and pigs have declined, indicating that the process of deagrarianisation is not restricted to cropping but also to animal husbandry. Many households did not choose to get rid of their livestock but lost them due to one or more of drought, disease or theft, but then did not replace them. They did not replace them because either they did not have the financial means to do so, had nobody to look after them or, having lost what they had, felt it was too risky to try again. Clearly, if the government or traditional authorities wish to reduce or reverse the decline in the number of households in the region keeping livestock and the associated benefit flows, some means of mitigating or insuring against the risks would be a logical place to start. Some examples include communal herding, communal dipping programmes, or fodder banks against droughts. Indeed, since the decline in livestock reportedly accelerated after the demise of the state-sponsored dipping programme, this should be reimplemented. The lack of fencing around fields, which leaves them prone to the depredations of livestock, could be addressed via the adoption of live fencing. However, any policies or interventions to address the decline in farming, livestock or fields, need to acknowledge the broader national and global economic dynamics [50] alongside the land tenure issues in South Africa’s communal areas.

5. Conclusions

Within South Africa and globally, much of the research on deagrarianisation has focused on the rates and drivers of declines in field cultivation. The consequences of the declines in cropping have been investigated less, especially the ecological consequences [6]. The same applies with respect to the marked declines in livestock numbers and ownership found in our study. We have shown that the local residents perceive that the number of animals and owning households has declined over the last 15 years, driven by a complex suite of factors. Additionally, there appears to be no replacement of cattle with small-stock. However, over two-thirds of households without livestock aspire to own some, mostly for ceremonial and ritual purposes, which indicates that the traditional roles of livestock are still revered and a vital facet of Xhosa identity. Yet, the combined threats of disease, drought and animal theft mean that many view animal husbandry as a risky livelihood strategy.
The observed changing patterns of livestock ownership have hardly been considered in the deagrarianisation debates, nor have the ecological consequences of such. Yet, the reduction in grazing pressure accompanying the declines in livestock numbers is likely to have profound implications for a range of ecological dynamics from species and population scales through to landscapes and systems. Not least among these will be changes in fire regimes, nutrient cycling, sedimentation and biodiversity. Thus, deagrarianisation generally, and declines in livestock numbers specifically, is not solely an agricultural or livelihood issue but needs to be framed within a social-ecological systems approach. Using such an approach, further research is required to investigate (1) how are cultural views and requirements of livestock accommodated or changing in a context of declining numbers and ownership (for example, are they being replaced by other currencies of transactions, or are livestock purchased from further afield?). (2) Are declines in numbers correlated with improved rangeland and animal productivity? Additionally, (3) what forms of local-level cooperative action can be used to promote animal health against local diseases or theft (such as sharing knowledge of traditional veterinary medicines, cooperative purchases to reduce the unit costs, and cooperative herding arrangements).

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/land12091735/s1, Questionnaire: Assessment of changes in livestock ownership patterns.

Author Contributions

Conceptualisation, C.S.; Methodology, C.S. and M.N.; Data collection, M.N.; Data analysis, C.S.; Writing, C.S.; Review and Editing, C.S. and M.N.; Funding, C.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The work was funded by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant No. 84379). Any opinion, finding, conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material is that of the authors, and the NRF does not accept any liability in this regard.

Data Availability Statement

Copies of the data can be obtained from the corresponding author upon request.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our thanks to all the respondents who participated in the survey, Bronwyn Mclean for preparing Figure 1 and Xolisa Manganca for data entry.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Land 12 01735 g001
Figure 1. Location of the 10 sample villages in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
Figure 1. Location of the 10 sample villages in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
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Figure 2. Respondents’ primary reason for keeping particular types of livestock (% of households with each type).
Figure 2. Respondents’ primary reason for keeping particular types of livestock (% of households with each type).
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Figure 3. Period during which households who previously kept different types of livestock ceased to do so.
Figure 3. Period during which households who previously kept different types of livestock ceased to do so.
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Table 1. Respondents’ perceptions of change over the last 15 years in the number of households in the villages that have livestock as well as the number of livestock in the villages (values are %).
Table 1. Respondents’ perceptions of change over the last 15 years in the number of households in the villages that have livestock as well as the number of livestock in the villages (values are %).
VariableAttributeCattleGoatsPigsSheep
No. of hhs in village that have livestockNo change4.68.225.414.2
If changed:Increased28.042.745.357.1
Decreased72.057.354.742.9
No. of livestock in village No change12.117.331.718.0
If changed: Increased25.143.246.954.7
Decreased74.956.853.145.3
Why increasedTaking care21.39.66.116.3
Buying in18.04.115.213.8
Births8.29.610.16.5
Productive land9.81.413.124.4
Increase in shrubs0016.20
Earn income027.409.8
Do not know18.016.422.28.9
Other (combined)24.631.517.120.3
Why decreasedDrought32.72.011.916.3
Died20.43.97.63.3
Theft18.92.010.220.7
Disease5.147.112.77.6
Do not know10.220.624.631.5
Other (combined)12.724.433.020.6
Table 2. Current household holdings of different types of livestock compared to 15 years ago.
Table 2. Current household holdings of different types of livestock compared to 15 years ago.
VariableCattleGoatsPigsSheep
% hhs keeping29.530.928.420.0
Mean (±std) per owning hh8.7 ± 9.512.0 ± 9.33.4 ± 3.827.5 ± 41.1
Range amongst owning hhs1–471–391–161–250
% owning hhs stating current numbers are a few or a lot less than 15 years ago83.464.355.569.8
% owning hhs stating current numbers are a few or a lot more than 15 years ago13.828.633.325.0
Table 3. Reasons given by former owning households why they no longer keep livestock.
Table 3. Reasons given by former owning households why they no longer keep livestock.
ReasonCattleGoatsPigsSheep
They died45.128.118.413.9
Sold them1/5.024.021.027.8
Stolen13.321.9033.3
Nobody to look after them12.410.45.35.6
Sold because feared they would be stolen2.72.100
No time to look after them3.52.12.60
Insufficient grazing1.8000
Other6.211.452.619.4
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Shackleton, C.; Ntshudu, M. Declines in Livestock Numbers Accompany Cropping Deagrarianisation Processes in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Land 2023, 12, 1735. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12091735

AMA Style

Shackleton C, Ntshudu M. Declines in Livestock Numbers Accompany Cropping Deagrarianisation Processes in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Land. 2023; 12(9):1735. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12091735

Chicago/Turabian Style

Shackleton, Charlie, and Monde Ntshudu. 2023. "Declines in Livestock Numbers Accompany Cropping Deagrarianisation Processes in the Eastern Cape, South Africa" Land 12, no. 9: 1735. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12091735

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