A young boy watches over his family’s herd. A new Livestock-Climate Change CRSP project led by South Dakota State University will help pastoralists in Mali adapt to a changes in climate and land-use that threatened this traditional way of life. Photo courtesy of Niall Hanan.

The Livestock-Climate Change Collaborative Support Program (LCC CRSP), has awarded over $1.3 million to South Dakota State University and Syracuse University for projects that incorporate innovative scientific research with capacity building and institutional strengthening to improve the lives and livelihoods of livestock producers and increase the resilience of livestock systems in West Africa in the face of climate variability and long-term climate change. Projects are targeted toward reducing vulnerability, increasing adaptive capacity, and augmenting the income of livestock producers in West Africa, where dryland agricultural systems are especially vulnerable to climate change-induced drought, flooding, and other weather extremes and over 50% of the population lives in poverty. Both projects take an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving, seek to develop and/or expand innovation, and build capacity.

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Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy is the title of a new book by Livestock-Climate Change CRSP research partners John McPeak and Peter Little.   The book summarizes the results of a multi-year interdisciplinary research project in pastoral areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. The authors describe the ecology and social context in which pastoralism takes place, with a particular focus on the risks that confront people living in these drylands, and how these risks are often triggered by highly variable rainfall conditions, a symptom of climate change.

The authors go on to describe the livelihood strategies employed by pastoralists in these areas, with a focus on how well-being is tied to access to livestock and the cash economy. They conclude that the future development activities need to be built on the foundation of the livestock economy, instead of seeking to replace it.

John McPeak is an Associate Professor and Vice-Chair in the Department of Public Administration in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University; he is a member of the LCC CRSP’s MLPI-2 project in Mali and leads the RIVERS project in Senegal.  Peter D. Little is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Program in Development Studies at Emory University; he leads the LCC CRSP CHAINS project, which takes place in Ethiopia and Kenya. Cheryl R. Doss, also a co-author, is Senior Lecturer in Global Affairs and Economics and the Director of Graduate Studies for the MA program in International Relations at Yale University.

Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy is available from Routledge.

The Adapting Livestock Systems to Climate Change Collaborative Research Support Program at Colorado State University has awarded a total of $720,000 to nine U.S. universities and their host-country partners in east Africa, west Africa and central Asia to improve the livelihoods of small-scale livestock producers. Two of the awards were given to researchers at Colorado State University.

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