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| Title: | Patch use by cattle in dryland Zimbabwe: farmer knowledge and ecological theory |
| Author: | Scoones, Ian |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Pages: | 30 |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Paper (ISSN 0951-1911) |
| City of publisher: | London |
| Publisher: | Overseas Development Institute, Agricultural Administration Unit |
| Geographic term: | Zimbabwe |
| Subjects: | pastoralists land use agricultural land animal husbandry |
| Abstract: | Understanding farmers' strategies allows a framework for posing technical, scientific questions in research. It also provides the basis for evolving development strategies that are not imposed as alien 'packages' that contradict existing practices. The author illustrates this theme with an example from research carried out between 1986 and 1988 in Zvishavane District, southern Zimbabwe. It illustrates how an understanding of farmers' livestock management strategies, their environmental classification, and their understanding of ecological processes led first to the questions of a scientific study being posed and secondly to the answers and their development implications being understood. The questions relate to how livestock utilize different habitat patches in a dryland environment. This includes the use of two different ecological zones and, within these zones, the use of 'key resource' patches for providing fodder. This study leads to recommendations for grazing land and livestock development that, in certain respects, conflict with standard recommendations emanating from a process of research and development divorced from local social and ecological contexts. |