PPT Slide
Livestock are a critically-important, integral part of the livelihoods of all rural Sahelian peoples, whether farmers or herders. Farmers depend on the income, manure, milk, and meat of goats, sheep, camels, and - at the top of the prestige list - cattle. Quite often, farming households pay herders (usually from the Peul [Fulani] or Tuareg ethnic groups) to take
their livestock to wet-season grazing areas. These accumulated herds are driven north during the wet season, when they will be able to find water in surface ponds. As the wet season ends, the pastoralists return south. However, because they leave behind their families in village settlements, these herders are “transhumant” rather than truly nomadic.
A Peul herder with over 2000 head of cattle, Leré, Mali.