GRAZING LAND TENURE AND LIVELIHOOD SECURITY

Agriculture can be an uncertain enterprise, especially in a highly variable climate like that found in and near the Sahel. Rural smallholders, therefore, must always be thinking about security for their families. During the course of this research it was found that rural Gambian households protect themselves from catastrophes such as poor harvests with three successive "lines of defense," which are described in the first three sections of this chapter. These lines of defense are, first, attempting to maintain current income; second, relying upon past income (savings); and third, relying upon the income of others (credit). Following the descriptions of the three lines of defense, Section 6.4 discusses how wealth influences which line or lines of defense a household will rely upon. Section 6.5 discusses security at other levels above and below the household level, with special attention gender differences in security. The final section of the chapter discusses the logic of the three lines of defense and addresses two questions that were not answered in the development of the preliminary, general model of livelihood security in Chapter Three:

6.1 The First Line of Defense

First, efforts are made to ensure that income continues to come in. Diversification is important for this. Farmers diversify within the farming enterprise -- many men at Ngeyen Sanjal reported that the groundnut harvest this year (1993) had been poor but that the millet harvest was adequate, or that in past years when both the millet and groundnut harvests have been poor, they have relied on the wives' rice harvest. Households also diversify outside the farming enterprise. At both sites most of the villagers that were interviewed reported that in addition to farming, their household had some other source of income from at least one member of the family. A wide variety of these other income sources were named, including making and selling handicrafts, cutting and selling firewood, building fences, making bricks, making mattresses, hiring out a horse or donkey cart, running a small shop, tailoring, trading, building construction, and employment in the formal sector.

Now that farming is bad I am doing many things to make a living. I go to the bush for to collect thatch for roofing to sell. I also go to one well where I make mud bricks to sell. I have started caring for people's sheep. They pay me with the second lamb born to each ewe. That's how we got these sheep here. Before I had these I didn't have any livestock to sell if I needed to sell some. Instead, what I would do in those days was to go look for labouring jobs. Oh, and I also used to make mats to sell, but not now.

-a man from Ngeyen Sanjal

6.2 The Second Line of Defense

When current income, whether in food or in money, cannot be maintained, the second line of defense, reliance upon the income of previous years, is activated. In many rural African societies, including The Gambia, the most popular form of savings is livestock. Heads of compounds interviewed during this research usually stated that the first type of possession to be sold when the food harvest and cash incomes are inadequate, and cash savings, if any, are depleted, as well as the first thing to be purchased when money is available, is livestock. Livestock are an attractive investment because they reproduce, they provide milk, manure, and traction, and they are not subject to the currency devaluations and inflation rates that devalue bank accounts and other cash savings. The superiority of livestock over other investments has been noted in a number of countries including Kenya (Haaland, 1977; Hogg, 1987:298), Sudan (Frankenberger, 1986), Swaziland (Doran, et.al., 1979:45), Botswana (Lawry, 1983:58), and The Gambia (Shipton, 1989:8).

Survival leaves nothing at home except the wives and children.

-a Wolof proverb

While the role of livestock as a form of savings is often discussed in literature on security and livelihoods, an issue that seems to be ignored is differences in how different types of livestock fit into saving and security strategies. Considered as investments, various types of livestock are different not only in stature but also in kind. People I spoke with usually see sheep and goats as short term investments to be kept perhaps for less than one year before being sold. Cattle, on the other hand, are seen as the most appropriate type of livestock for long term savings. It is also possible to differentiate between sheep and goats. Goats are often obtained when fast money is desired -- they grow quickly and are prolific. Sheep, however, bring higher long term profits, sometimes even higher than cattle. According to a matrix ranking exercise conducted with a group of men in Sutukunding, they believe investments made in sheep and goats are more profitable than other ways of saving, are almost as accessible as cash savings, and are safer than other forms of savings with the sole exception of food stores (see Figure 6.1).

Despite the profitability of goats and even higher profitability of sheep, most people endeavor to own cattle. In Ngeyen Sanjal one villager said, "Owning cattle is the last and highest stage of having wealth." Clearly, choices about investments are influenced by more criteria than those shown in Figure 6.1. The preference for cattle that Gambians have may be explained in part by what Shipton (1989:4) calls the "illiquidity preference." Gambian men "value large stock as a form of savings partly because it is indivisible and thus more or less removed from the day-to-day claims of their wives and other kin" (Shipton, 1989:8). The difference between small and large stock can be characterized by saying that people get sheep and goats to make money and get cattle to save money. However, this difference should not be overstated, as both classes of animals serve both savings and investment functions.

Livestock are the most popular form of savings/investment but not the only one. People may buy extra food to store, buy jewelry, or invest in goods that they will resell. It should be noted that the type of investment chosen is also based on what the person knows and has experience with. In discussing the relative merits of different types of investments, one man said,

6.3 The Third Line Defense

When current income cannot be maintained and savings are inadequate, Gambian households fall back to the third line of defense, which is to rely upon the income of others -- in other words, credit. For most people interviewed in the course of this research, borrowing is a last resort, partly because of the very high interest rates. Parker Shipton (1989:3) describes attitudes towards credit and debt in The Gambia:

Taking credit, the third "line of defense," usually is done only when the first two lines of defense have failed. Most people interviewed reported that their first priority when they had any money was to pay off debts; investments, such as livestock, would be made only after debts were cleared.

You never know if it will be a bad year until it happens. But if it does happen you can sell your livestock or borrow from people. When I have to I borrow from friends, family, or shopkeepers. This year has been a bad year. We still have some food in store but if that runs out I will sell an animal. It would be lazy to go and borrow from someone if I have something to sell.

-a man from Ngeyen Sanjal

One of the incentives to lend to those in need is the high rate of interest that can be charged, sometimes more than 100% per year. But there is also an incentive for non-commercial lending between neighbors or relatives. By lending to someone in need, the lender establishes a moral obligation upon the borrower to return the favor if it becomes necessary. Based on the interviews that were done in this research, borrowing from friends and relatives is probably a bit more common than borrowing from shopkeepers or other wealthy individuals in the village.

6.4 The Effect of Wealth on Security Strategies

The three lines of defense apply to almost of all the households studied, regardless of their level of wealth. Most people would rather draw upon savings than take credit and would rather find some way to maintain income than draw upon savings. The influence of wealth is manifested in which line or lines of defense a household is likely to use and how those lines of defense are manifested. For example, most households attempt to maintain their income in times of crisis by diversifying, but their level of wealth will affect exactly how they diversify. Wealthier households are somewhat more likely to have educated members with formal sector employment and are far more likely to have members working in developed countries sending money back home. Poorer households, on the other hand, tend to rely more on collecting items from the bush to eat or sell.

Wealth means having lots of cattle or lots of sheep and goats. It also means that people come to you with their problems.

-a woman from Ngeyen Sanjal

Obviously, the second line of defense, relying upon savings, is directly related to wealth. But the level of wealth affects not only the quantity of savings, but also the type of savings. Poorer households invest in small animals not only because they cannot afford cattle but also because they are likely, more likely than wealthy households, to need to sell an animal quickly. The "illiquidity preference" that Shipton speaks of is probably more applicable to wealthier households. The poorest households cannot afford an illiquidity preference. The likelihood of households having to fall back to the third line of defense, the taking of credit, depends upon how easily their savings are depleted. The wealthiest households, having more savings, will rarely need to borrow. Instead, they are more likely to be the lenders.

Last year was a bad year -- this year, as well. As for the women of this compound, it's only groundnuts that we grow and these have been poor. The men started to have good millet but there were weeds. To get through these bad years some of the women smoke fish to sell in Basse town and I spin cotton. The most important thing for security is making extra money from this trading -- fish, cotton thread, and things like that.

-a woman from Sutukunding

6.5 Security at Other Levels

Although the focus of this research is on security strategies at the household level, it is important to realize that security is an important concern at several levels including the individual, the sub-household (sinkiro or dabada), the household (defined here as "compound"), the lineage, the community, and the nation. For example, while not as crucial as the measures that the household takes on its own, reliance upon relatives outside of the immediate household is still very important. Many people reported that at times they had had to borrow or take gifts from relatives. When the household at various times borrows from or lends to various relatives, a network of mutual reliance is established.

Looking in the other direction, at levels below the household, we see that the household is not monolithic but is made up of parts. It may contain more than one sinkiro or dabada, and, of course, it contains a number of individuals of different ages and both genders. Within the household, access to resources and authority to make decisions are not distributed equally. Furthermore, different members of the household are often engaged in semi-autonomous enterprises, having their own livestock and their own fields with their own crops. In Ngeyen Sanjal men typically grow groundnuts, millet, or both and almost all women grow rice. In Sutukunding men typically grow millet, and maize or sorghum, and women grow groundnuts, and beans or vegetables. This gender-based division of labour can be partly explained in terms of the first line of defense in livelihood security strategies: maintaining income through diversification. However, while there is diversity in production, there is unity in the storing of food. At both research sites almost all households reported that they had one central food store. Any part of the harvest that is not sold is stored here, to be controlled usually by one person only, the head of the compound. He will measure out what is needed for each day's cooking.

It is in the possession of productive resources that the greatest difference between the security of men and the security of women can be seen (See Figure 6.2). At Ngeyen Sanjal, in terms of ownership of livestock, men were clearly wealthier than women. Some women may possess a greater number of livestock than their husbands but these will primarily be poultry and small ruminants, which are not as valuable as cattle, horses, and donkeys. Interestingly, women in Sutukunding reported that taken as a group, women own the majority of sheep, goats, and cattle. However, in neither village do women typically own draft animals. When women have plowing that needs to be done they will not have access to the draft animals until the men have finished with them. As a result, women must sometimes plow and plant their fields later than they would like.

The inequality of access to resources extends also to land. As stated in the previous chapter, rights to cropland are usually held not by individuals but by compounds or lineages. Because these family groupings are headed by men and because whenever a women marries or divorces she moves to a new family grouping, women's access to land is much more insecure than that of men. Although the focus of this research is on security strategies at the household level, it is important to note that the household is neither monolithic nor completely self-contained, and that security for a household does not necessarily translate into equal security for all of its members.

6.6 Understanding Security Strategies

In Chapter Three it was said that when a living is produced any surplus can be channelled into savings, and that when consumption levels drop, the flow can be reversed so that savings are consumed. However, to draw upon savings is the second line of defense; first, attempts are made to ensure that income continues to come in, primarily through diversification (Figure 6.3). When incomes cannot be maintained households fall back to the second line of defense, which is to rely on the income of previous years, in other words, savings. In the model of rural livelihoods presented by Chambers and Conway, tangible assets are made up of stores and resources. "Savings" is roughly synonymous with "stores," and will commonly include cash savings, food stores, jewelry, and livestock. If the savings that are consumed are merely stores, then consumption of those savings is relatively benign; but if they are also resources that contribute to production, such as livestock, the situation is different. Selling or slaughtering a few livestock from a large herd is not catastrophic, but selling the last or the only plow ox can be.

If necessary, people will fall back to the third line of defense, which is to take credit (or some other form of assistance from other people), in other words to rely upon the income of other people usually by pledging one's own future income. People are able to borrow from friends, neighbors, and relatives because of an established history of mutual assistance. In the existing social system they can make claims on people in their community and on relatives in other communities. But there may be a limit to how much this social system will provide to the person in need. Claims are not infinite but may have to be "cashed in" just as an ox may have to be sold. When a household is employing the first line of defense, maintaining current income, they continue to run the livelihood system in a forward direction. But when they fall back to the second or third line of defense they are consuming capital, consuming the assets that they use to make a living (see Figure 6.4). By "running the system in reverse" this way they are potentially reducing their ability to produce a living in the future or else are giving someone else claim to that living.

While some writers have discussed how the rural poor will "cash in" livelihood assets in times of need (see Section 3.1), it is hoped that this discussion adds some detail to how and which assets are drawn upon. This discussion should also make clear the inherent logic of the sequence of the three lines of defense. Households first attempt to maintain income without consuming the livelihood assets that they use to produce that income. Only when necessary do they begin consuming assets. The choice of which assets to consume is made based upon what will do the least harm to their ability to make a living, starting first with savings and only as a last resort selling essential resources or mortgaging future income.