Food shortages and seasonality in Wodaabe communities in Niger

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Periodical article

Title:	Food shortages and seasonality in Wodaabe communities in Niger
Author:	White, C.
Year:	1986
Periodical:	IDS Bulletin
Volume:	17
Issue:	3
Pages:	19-26
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Niger
Subjects:	nomads food shortage food seasonality
External link:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1759-5436.1986.mp17003004.x/abstract
Abstract:	Data based on fieldwork carried out between September 1979 and April 1983 among the WoDaaBe, nomadic pastoralists in central Niger, demonstrate that seasonality, through a coincidence of stress factors in the dry and transition seasons, clearly does reinforce poverty in this group. Although important, dry season hardship is merely a symptom of more crucial political and economic factors affecting the WoDaaBe economy. Whereas in the past large-scale animal losses by families in bad years used to be made up, new forms of development, particularly the expansion of areas cultivated by farmers, have now made pastoralists more vulnerable. To counter the impact of large-scale animal loss in bad years, a famine early warning system, including measures to reduce the collapse of livestock prices and simultaneous cereal price increases, must be implemented. Bibliogr., note, sum. also in French and Spanish.