Principles and Techniques of Veterinary and AH Extension

PASTORALISM 

• Historically,pastoralism is considered an offshoot of mixed agricultural and herdingsubsistence patterns, in adaptation to grasslands and marginal areas notsuitable for growing cereal plants.
• Pastoralism was probably the consequence ofnew problems in managing domesticated plant and animal resources.
• After about4,000 years of mixed farming and animal husbandry, two different kinds ofpeople emerged: the peasant, who was completely sedentarised on permanent sitessuitable for agricultural pursuits, and the herdsman or pastoralist, who wasalmost entirely dependent on livestock raising. People in remote parts of theworld have maintained nomadic pastoralism as a way of life, but as a culturalsystem it has Old World origins.
• The livestockon which pastoralism is based include sheep, goats, bovines (cattle, yaks), equines(horses, asses). Buffaloes (Bubalis bubalis domesticus) seem tohave come under human control at a later period about 2000 bc in the Indus Valleyand 1000 bc in China.