Livestock Owners’ Group Calls for Protection of Cattle Tracks to Prevent Farmer-Herder Conflicts

By Seedy Jobe

The president of the National Livestock Owners Association has called for stronger protection of cattle tracks and grazing areas across The Gambia, warning that their steady disappearance is fueling tensions between livestock owners and crop farmers.

Ebrima O. Jallow, the association’s president, said in an interview with QTV on Monday that traditional cattle routes and grazing lands, once common in rural communities, were increasingly being converted into farms, orchards, and residential areas as the population grows and competition for land intensifies.

Mr. Jallow said nearly every village in the provinces historically had designated areas where livestock could graze and established routes through which animals could move without encroaching on farmland. But many of those spaces, he said, have gradually disappeared.

The shrinking access to grazing land comes as livestock numbers continue to increase, creating greater pressure on the remaining cattle routes and raising the risk of disputes when animals stray into cultivated fields.

“We don’t want to see conflict,” Mr. Jallow said, stressing the need for preventive measures before disagreements between farmers and livestock owners escalate.

He said the association, working with the Ministry of Agriculture and the P2P2RS project, has been conducting a nationwide sensitization campaign aimed at reducing such disputes. The initiative has brought together governors, police officers, village heads, chiefs, farmers, and livestock owners to discuss ways of managing land use and preventing clashes.

“Our main objective is to make sure we try to prevent and then map the cattle tracks and have conventions, so that at the end of the day, we don’t have the problem like that,” Mr. Jallow said.

NaLOA is pushing for cattle tracks across the country to be formally mapped and demarcated, Mr. Jallow said. The association also wants grazing areas reseeded to provide livestock with adequate pasture closer to their communities.

Such measures, he said, would allow animals to graze nearer to home and reduce the likelihood of livestock wandering onto farmland, a frequent source of tension between farmers and herders.

Mr. Jallow said preserving cattle tracks was increasingly important as competition for land grows, arguing that clearly defined spaces for farming and livestock could help communities accommodate both activities while avoiding unnecessary conflict.