Author:
Kahiu Njoki,Anchang J.,Alulu V.,Fava F. P.,Jensen N.,Hanan N. P.
Abstract
AbstractAfrican pastoralists suffer recurrent droughts that cause high livestock mortality and vulnerability to climate change. The index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) program offers protection against drought impacts. However, the current IBLI design relying on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) may pose limitation because it does not consider the mixed composition of rangelands (including herbaceous and woody plants) and the diverse feeding habits of grazers and browsers. To enhance IBLI, we assessed the efficacy of utilizing distinct browse and grazing forage estimates from woody LAI (LAIW) and herbaceous LAI (LAIH), respectively, derived from aggregate leaf area index (LAIA), as an alternative to NDVI for refined IBLI design. Using historical livestock mortality data from northern Kenya as reference ground dataset, our analysis compared two competing models for (1) aggregate forage estimates including sub-models for NDVI, LAI (LAIA); and (2) partitioned biomass model (LAIP) comprising LAIH and LAIW. By integrating forage estimates with ancillary environmental variables, we found that LAIP, with separate forage estimates, outperformed the aggregate models. For total livestock mortality, LAIP yielded the lowest RMSE (5.9 TLUs) and higher R2 (0.83), surpassing NDVI and LAIA models RMSE (9.3 TLUs) and R2 (0.6). A similar pattern was observed for species-specific livestock mortality. The influence of environmental variables across the models varied, depending on level of mortality aggregation or separation. Overall, forage availability was consistently the most influential variable, with species-specific models showing the different forage preferences in various animal types. These results suggest that deriving distinct browse and grazing forage estimates from LAIP has the potential to reduce basis risk by enhancing IBLI index accuracy.
Funder
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
NASA-SERVIR Applied Science Team program
CGIAR Research Programs at the International Livestock Research Institute
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference74 articles.
1. Herrero, M. et al. The roles of livestock in developing countries. Animal 7, 3–18 (2013).
2. Jensen, N. D., Barrett, C. B. & Mude, A. G. Index insurance quality and basis risk: Evidence from northern Kenya. Am. J. Agric. Econ. 98, 1450–1469 (2016).
3. Mude, A., Chantarat, S., Barrett, C. B. & Carter, M. Insuring against drought-related livestock mortality. In Weather Index Insurance For Smallholder Farmers In Africa: Lessons Learnt And Goals For The Future. 49–71 (2012).
4. Wong, J. T., Vance, C. & Peters, A. Refining livestock mortality indicators: A systematic review. Gates Open Res. 5, 75. https://doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.13228.1 (2021).
5. Tessema, W. K., Ingenbleek, P. T. & van Trijp, H. C. Pastoralism, sustainability, and marketing. A review. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 34, 75–92 (2014).