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Doctorat
Allemagne
2012
Environmental Risk and Sustainability : The Case of Commercial Livestock Farming in Semi-Arid Rangelands
Titre : Environmental Risk and Sustainability : The Case of Commercial Livestock Farming in Semi-Arid Rangelands
Auteur : Olbrich Roland
Université de soutenance : Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Grade : Dr.rer.pol. 2012
Résumé
Commercial cattle farming in Namibia, a prime example of livestock farming in semi-arid
rangelands, is subject to a variety of risks, predominant among which is precipitation risk. At
the same time it suffers from rangeland degradation that is at least partly due to inadequate
management. We characterize cattle farms through descriptive statistics and cluster analysis
using data that we elicited in August 2008 through mail-in questionnaires and in-field
experiments. We find that cattle farms are highly heterogeneous in the majority of individual
characteristics. Heterogeneity is also observed when analyzing characteristics jointly through
the cluster analysis which suggests classification of farms into three distinct clusters. This
classification is predominantly driven by environmental condition and financial risk
management, and to a lesser extent by organizational structure of farms or ethnicity. Overall,
our study is the first to provide a comprehensive characterization of this system in respect to
risk, management and sustainability.
Mots clés : environmental risk , sustainability , Namibia , field experiments , rangelands
Page publiée le 24 juin 2013, mise à jour le 12 janvier 2019