Beef Production in the Rangelands: A Comparative Assessment between Pastoralism and Large-Scale Ranching in Laikipia County, Kenya

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

The manuscript is well written and could be of interest for the agriculture community in Kenya. However, I have few comments.

L17: Change was to were.

L33: provide a reference for this sentence.

L40: What do the authors mean by “which is a major destination for beef”

L70-72: Why the authors using semicolon instead of comma?

L126-127: Why only 6 community ranches were chosen? Please justify.

L136: “Cross sectional data” was or were?

L142: Data is plural, was should be changed to were.

L148: “Data was cleaned” what do the authors mean by that, please rephrase.

L152: change was to were.

L186-187: Were all pastoralists’ cattle dairy cattle? How the authors made sure to that they did a fair comparison between two different populations of cattle. What is a typical age of dairy cattle slaughter? Where some of these cattle bred before harvest?

L199: Please define “Tropical Livestock Unit”

Table 1 and 2 should be combined to make the comparison easier.

L248-249: Delete “Cost of production is higher for the pastoralists who purchase pasture during the 249 dry months.”

The authors should consider combining scale rancher and pastoralists data in one table (Table 4 & 5).

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments

Limitations of the study derived from the fact of not having taking into account cost of stables for LSR, income of LSR for grazing fees, milk revenue for pastoralists, calculation of hired labour but not of family labour, should be discussed in the Discussion Section.

Further shortcomings are the lack of any statistical analysis, which should be performed, in spite of the limitation of the very unbalanced design with 7 versus 67 farms enquired.

I would suggest to reorganize the text, tables and figures. Results section should be shortened and focused on differences and similarities. Moreover, some parts correspond to Methods, some other should be part of the Discussion. Please, join 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 in one only subsection; the same for 3.5-3.6 (in one only section). Please, merge Tables 1 and 2 into one only comparative table. The same for Tables 3-4-5, in one only table. Merge figures 2 and 3 in one only figure; the same for figures 4-5. All these arrangements should facilitate the comparison between the two production systems for the readers. Please, avoid repeating the same information in the text as well as in the tables.

Conclusions section should be shortened and focused and should not include parts which should be in the Discussion section (please, see detailed comments).

The title is not very specific, in my opinion, it would include some terms such as “economics”, “constraints”.

Please be consistent on the terminology through the manuscript, including Figure 1. For instance, in Introduction, you mention “large scale ranches” versus “pastoralists”, whereas in Methods, you keep “large scale ranches” but change into “community ranches” (e.g. line 110). And in Figure 1, you change again into “Private ranges” and “Group Ranches”, or simply “ranchers” in the Figure 3 caption. Please, harmonize. Please, in Figure 1, indicate the specific LS ranches enquired in the study.

In general, through the manuscript, specify if gross margin is expressed in terms of Gross Margin per head or it is referred to the whole farm. If the latter is the case, calculations should be made to be able to compare farms with very different size.

Dollars or Euros currency could facilitate interpretation for wider areas readers.

Detailed comments

Lines 23-25. Separate the origin of these results/conclusions: some of them derive directly from the enquiries, some other are suggested by the authors.

Line 62: Please, be more precise on “quality of beef”, what do you refer to, nutritional quality, organoleptic quality?

Line 96: please give total area of Laikipia and percentage of Kenya.

Line 108. 48 LSR and how many pastoral communities?

Line 110. According to the text, ranches are located in the north, but according to Figure 1, they are spread all over the County.

Lines 111-113. Why is there such different pattern between Kenya and Laikipia? In the Introduction section, “Pastoralists produce about 80% of the beef consumed in Kenya, while large scale ranches produce another 2-5%”, but in 112-113, it seems that LSR are by far more important than “community” (if ‘community’ means the same as ‘pastoralist’).

Line 112. Not necessary to give the data 67,720 ha if you previously gave the total area of Laikipia. Anyway, give the same data on LSR than on “community” ranches.

Lines 108. Please give more information on the number of Livestock Units, production system, breeds, etc. of the two systems.

Line 113. Average land holding size 10 ha, but what is the area they use really as pastoralists?

Lines 126-127. From these lines, I understand that the concept of community range is different from pastoral households. This difference should be clearly explained already in the 2.1. Study area Section.

Lines 131 and 132: 10 households were picked from “every” 4 community ranches… while 15 households were picked from “every” 2 community ranches…?

Line 150. It is surprising to mention a statistical software when no statistical analysis has been done. Anyway, uppercase letter Excel and Stata 14, if mentioned.

Line 151. Please, explain how you performed the ‘content analysis’, what terms you selected, how you analysed them, etc. Did you perform content analysis manually, or did you use a computer program?

Lines 165-166. In my opinion, stables and other permanent livestock holding structures should have been into account in LSR as costs, in order to compare both systems, LSR and pastoralists. On the other hand, were land costs for LSR considered?

Lines 171-175. If the grazing fees for the pastoralists was a cost for them, why was it not an income for the LSR? Please, explain how “reciprocal fee” and agreements work, and what is the benefit for LSR, if it is not economic.

Lines 180-183. In my opinion, family labour should have been taken into account, to provide a more realistic view of the costs.

Lines 186-187. In my opinion, milk revenue should have been taken into account.

Tables 1 and 2. Please, merge the two tables into one only comparative table. Please, provide size in hectares instead of acres. Express data equally in the two production systems (e.g., as a % of households). Provide cattle stocking rates for both systems. Provide maximum, minimum and standard deviation values for households for all items (in all the tables). Please, correct/improve tables 1 and 2 and corresponding text following also the next two comments.

Table 1. If the data are correct, 14 (adult?) cattle / 19 TLU = 73.6% (instead of 20% provided in line 200). Cattle TLU + Sheep/goats TLU should sum 19 TLU. Breeds of cattle should sum 100%. Please, provide land area used for pastoralist households for grazing (communal land). Include data on Livestock selling channels on Table 3, instead of Table 1 (the same for Table 2). Reorganize text of sections 3.1 and 3.2 accordingly.

Lines 208-209. This statement “pastoralists …delivered their cattle to the markets” is not apparent from the Table 1 (87% Trader/Brooker selling channels).

Lines 209-211. Please express this point in terms of TLU instead of heads.

Line 250. “2,000 head of cattle”, does it refer to one single or to all the LSRanches of the study?. “…they charged approximately KES per 250 head of cattle”, this is inconsistent with Line 173. Anyway, the way the cost is calculated should be explained in the Methods Section.

Lines 261-262. This issue should be sufficiently presented in the Introduction section: causes and consequences of the decrease of pastoralism in the region, because of its importance on the present conflicts between the two production systems.

Lines 269-270. This should be in the Methods Section.

Tables 4 and 5, Revenue and Gross Margin per head, per farm?

Figure 4. Please, revise spelling of the items. Also, Opuntia in italics.

Highlight the lack of veterinary costs in the pastoralism system, if it is the case.

Line 400. Gross margin per head, or farm level?

Line 430. Meat Quality has not been addressed in the enquiries nor, sufficiently, in the Discussion section.

Lines 438-450. Upgrading pastoral production should be discussed in the Discussion section, and presented, if it is the case, as a short Conclusion.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I am satisfied with the current manuscript 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have improved the manuscript. However, some questions have not been properly responded:

- Further shortcomings are the lack of any statistical analysis, which should be performed, in spite of the limitation of the very unbalanced design with 7 versus 67 farms enquired.

• Thanks for the comment. However, within the scope of our study and for this particular paper we have only done the gross margins analysis.

My previous comment has not been adequately responded by the authors. Where are the result of the gross margins statistical analysis showed? Are the differences between production systems statistically significant in terms of gross margin? The manuscript should be improved with extensive statistical analysis.

- Please be consistent on the terminology through the manuscript, including Figure 1. For instance, in Introduction, you mention “large scale ranches” versus “pastoralists”, whereas in Methods, you keep “large scale ranches” but change into “community ranches” (e.g. line 110). And in Figure 1, you change again into “Private ranges” and “Group Ranches”, or simply “ranchers” in the Figure 3 caption. Please, harmonize. Please, in Figure 1, indicate the specific LS ranches enquired in the study.

• Thanks for noting the inconsistency. We have corrected that concern by consistently using “large scale-ranches” and “pastoralists” (where applicable) throughout the manuscript.

Figure 1 is not still corrected, please, indicate, e.g. in the caption, that “Private Ranches” refers to large-scale ranches and “Group Ranches” host the pastoralists in Laikipia.

- Tables 1 and 2 (current Table 1). Express data equally in the two production systems (e.g., as a % of households). Provide maximum, minimum and standard deviation values for households for all items (in all the tables).

• Tables 1 and 2 have been merged into the current Table 1. However, data that could not be presented equally in the table has been given in text.

Data are not expressed in % of households, necessary for the reader to be able to compare both systems easily. The same for Table 3 and 4 (new table 2). Please, provide data in percentages. Maximum, minimum and standard deviation values for households for all items (in all the tables) have not been provided by the authors.

Line 279. Please check “singe” spelling”

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx