LAND REFORM POLICIES AND PASTORALISM IN CENTRAL ASIA

. LAND REFORM POLICIES AND PASTORALISM IN CENTRAL ASIA

Property rights • Role of the state in setting boundaries and relationships between stakeholders; • Formal legislation governing pasture access; • Actual implementation by officials; • Customary user rules and internal structures of local pasture management organisations.

Property rights systems influence: • Environmental impact of livestock raising; • Contribution of pastures to livestock production systems; • Access to pastures by different categories of user.

Different systems • Open access • Individualised (private/rented) • Common property • State managed systems • Mixed systems Debates on the relative merits of these different systems have now arrived in Central Asia

Central Asia: a natural experiment • Until 1991 the five republics had a common mechanism of pasture management; • They then adopted very different systems of pastoral property rights; • State control, common property, leasehold systems and private ownership all exist today.

The natural environment: Major migrations in pre-Soviet Kazakhstan In Zhambakin 1995

The Soviet Period • State farms allocated seasonal pastures in multiple locations; • Migration supported by the state; • Intensification enabled reduction in mobility and growth in numbers.

The 1990 s • De-intensification; • Deterioration of infrastructure; • Drop in livestock numbers in some republics; • Increase in privately owned animals;

Change in livestock distributions • Economic barriers to seasonal pasture use. • Large areas of pasture abandoned; • Livestock concentrated around settlements; • System fragmentation.

System fragmentation: Almaty province

The new livestock owners • Range from smallholders to commercial livestock operations; • Livestock ownership volatile; • Smallholders access remote pasture through collective herding systems.

Typical livestock ownership distribution Ownership frequency 45 40 35 30 25 2003 2011 20 15 10 5 0 1 -20 21 -100 101 -300 301 -500 Flock size 500+

Legal change • Many pastures initially accessed informally; • Formal legislation increasingly applied to grazing lands; • Legislation usually concerned land codes designed for arable land reform.

Kyrgyzstan • Pasture and arable land not subject to same rules in land code; • A leasehold system was introduced to govern access to pastures; • Smallholders did not obtain formal leases.

Criticism of the leasing system • Conflicts between lessees and others - negative impact on pasture access by the poor; • Pastures no longer managed as grazing systems - different seasonal pastures no longer come under a single authority. -> Pressure for change

Kyrgyz 2009 pasture law • Seasonal pastures under the administration of local government; • Borders established by boundary commission; • Management devolved to local Pasture Users Associations; • Access rights to pasture by purchase of tickets, sold on an annual basis to members.

Tajikistan • Both pasture and arable land subject to same legislation; • Access mode permanent heritable use; • Some previously common pasture privatised by minority. • Collectively used pastures split into many tiny shares on paper; © Aga Khan Foundation / Jean-Luc Ray.

Tajik 2013 pasture law • Includes clauses enabling allocation of grazing lands to Pasture User Associations; • Some pasture already permanently privatised; • Options for exclusive individual property right continue to exist in the new law.

Kazakhstan • Mixed tenure arrangements; • No formal group contracts; • Administrative fragmentation; • Village-based grazing led to localized pasture degradation & low livestock productivity; • But large livestock operations increasingly common and relatively mobile; • Strong relationship between livestock ownership and registered pasture.

Uzbekistan • Leasehold system exists but used by minority; • Most livestock are held in households with no formal pasture access; • Most pasture held in state reserve or managed by state enterprises. © Amr flickr

Turkmenistan • State & collective farms transformed into ‘farmers’ associations’; • Livestock managed by members on a leasehold basis; • Non-leaseholders have informal access to pasture; • Uzbekistan &Turkmenistan are designing legislation to cover private owners. © Cara Kerven

Key points to consider for system design • Intensification is challenging; • Natural pastures continue to play key role in livestock production; • Role can be enhanced by better matching needs to resources.

…. • Studies have shown that herders are rational actors; • When economic and administrative barriers to pasture access are low, they tend to improve the matching of stocking rates to resources available; • Illustrated by correlation between herd size and mobility.

Herd size and migration distance (Kazakh village, 1998)

Property rights system should: 1. Treat pastures as grazing systems rather than as ‘fields’; 2. Match user rights to user needs; 3. Include mechanisms mitigating economic barriers to pasture access.

Flexibility or security: common questions • How can need to invest in pastures be reconciled with flexible user rights? • Is commercialisation compatible with common property resource management? • How can groups manage pasture sustainably? • How can flexibility be incorporated into individualised systems?

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