Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture No. 2/10
Different rangeland management systems to reduce livestock feeding costs in arid and semi-arid areas in Jordan
Emad K. Al-Karablieh and Amer S. Jabarin
University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
Abstract
The increasing livestock population combined with feed shortage leads
to continuous pressure on the marginal land demanding it to produce
feed, and consequently it leads to a significant rangeland degradation
and desertification. The objective of this research is to evaluate
different institutional arrangements for rangeland management in
relation to the cost of hand feeding. Descriptive statistics and cost
functions were used to estimate the differences in the total feed cost
under different management practices. There are four rangeland
management systems practiced in the arid and semi-arid areas in Jordan.
These are the traditional tribal systems, cooperative management,
governmental reserves and private rangeland. The rangeland
coope-ratives proved to have lower feeding costs and sustainable use of
resources compared to open access and governmental reserves. The
collective management of rangeland disallows the rangeland user to
behave in an opportunistic way. The results show that the herders
integrating crop and livestock had a lower probability to graze in the
governmental reserves and they relied more on their own feed resources.
The fencing and other overhead costs of governmental reserves could be
saved and directed towards building a new institutional form of
rangeland management based on the participation of the local community
in order to achieve sustainable rangeland resources.
Keywords: rangeland, collective actions, grazing management, hand feeding cost
JEL: Q12, Q15, Q57, R52
Vol. 49 (2010), No. 2: 91-109