The role of camel production on household resilience to droughts in pastoral and agro-pastoral households in Uganda
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Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pastoralism
Abstract
Recurrent and prolonged droughts have exacerbated the problems of pasture and water scarcity in arid and semiarid
lands (ASALs), hence, the need for immediate and long-term adaption strategies to such shocks. Camels are
increasingly being integrated into mainstream livestock production systems as an adaptation strategy to droughts.
However, rigorous empirical evidence remains scarce on the role of camel-rearing in household resilience to
droughts. This study used cross-sectional data from 116 households in the Karamoja sub-region of Uganda to
examine the effect of camel adoption on household resilience to drought. Resilience to drought was measured as
an index constructed from consumption- and income-smoothing indicators using the principal component analysis
(PCA) method. The effect of camel adoption on household resilience to droughts was estimated using Lewbel’s
estimator. Descriptive statistics show that camel tropical livestock units (TLUs) constituted 25% of the total TLUs of
the herd among adopting households. PCA analysis shows that income-smoothing factors (increased off-farm
income and alternative sources of income) had the greatest contribution to resilience. Econometric results show
that a unit increase in the proportion of camel TLUs significantly increased household resilience to droughts by
20%. The study recommends increased emphasis on income diversification both on-farm and off-farm across
programmes that aim to build pastoral household resilience to droughts.
Description
Keywords
Resilience, Pastoralism, Karamoja, Camels, Droughts
Citation
Asiimwe, R., Ainembabazi, JH, Egeru, A., Isoto, R., Aleper, DK, Namaalwa, J., & Diiro, GM (2020). The role of camel production on household resilience to droughts in pastoral and agro-pastoral households in Uganda. Pastoralism , https://doi.org/10.1186/s13570-020-0160-x