Towards indigenous community-based adaptation to climate change: a typological analysis of tree-livestock integration in smallholding systems in dryland areas of Benin (West-Africa)

Integration of livestock farming practices with trees is neglected and poorly explored in the context of climate change (CC) in drylands. However, such knowledge is urgently needed to propose effective strategies in the livestock sector to cope with CC. This study is initiated to characterize the diversity of indigenous integrated livestock systems with trees in drylands of Benin through a survey including 140 smallholder farmers. Descriptive statistics were performed to socio-economic profile of livestock farmers and data were submitted to a multiple correspondence analysis with hierarchical ascending classification and four types of integrated livestock smallholder farmers have been highlighted. The first type is referred to "Traditional silvopastoral systems", consisting of farmers owning high tropical livestock unit (26 +/- 0.59 TLU). They did not have land ownership and they exploited trees and shrubs in rangelands and protected areas. They used indigenous trees for treating sick animals and feeding. The second type is ''Improved silvopastoral systems'' with an average of 11 +/- 0.21 TLU. They had a land ownership and combined livestock, forage plants and fodder trees in pasturelands. The third type, referred as "Small Integrated agrosilvopastoral systems" consisted of smallholder farmers who integrated agriculture, livestock and tree plantations. They owned a low livestock tropical unit (6 +/- 0.24 TLU). The last type qualified as "Large Integrated agrosilvopastoral systems" owned an average of 18 +/- 0.34 TLU and cultivated large areas of land. Leguminous trees are used to improve soil fertility and as animal feed. A probit model analysis results indicated that the adoption of trees on livestock farming were influenced by ecological region, membership of association, Land tenure, farm size and herd size. Based on these identified different agroforestry practices of livestock smallholder farmers in the drylands, indigenous community-based adaptation can be designed to face CC.