Travel and trade, including for fodder purchase, are facilitated by the diffusion of vehicle transport that, since the 1990s, greatly facilitated refugees' mobility (Dedenis [2005]).
This study showed that at identical beef live weight produced, the Spr-system required 18% more on-farm utilized agricultural area, excreted 14% more nitrogen and released 12% more enteric methane, but used 22% less mineral nitrogen fertilizer, 34% less fuel, 89% less off-farm fodder purchases, 73% less concentrate purchases and 5% less bedding straw purchases.
In most cases, fodder is purchased in Tindouf.
When practised correctly, supplemental winter feedings - typically of fodder crops, purchased hay, or agricultural by-products - and warming pens result in higher body weight, and growth and reproduction rates.
Similarly, some traditional herders are 'against fodder' and are proud of the fact that they rely exclusively on free-grazing resources, believing that purchased fodder is bad for camels' health and lowers their resistance.
The second particularly applies to Sahrawi refugees; camels had to be fed purchased fodder.
The need to purchase fodder places an economic burden on camel owners and often forces them to generate revenues from production to pay for feed; fodder is either purchased with the same sources of cash used to access camels or with revenue from milk sales.
In particular cases (e.g. the birth of newborn animals), supplementary fresh fodder can be purchased at the market of Al Awaynat, a small oasis located near the Tadrart Acacus that can be conveniently reached by four-wheel-drive vehicles in a few hours, depending on the location of the settlements.
While nomadic camel husbandry depends on mobility and extensive free-grazing as main strategies to feed camel herds, refugees are sedentarized and lack grazing resources, so camel husbandry in the camps is mainly based on purchased fodder as well as flour, straw and barley grain.
Rather, intensification, as understood here and as described for peri-urban camel systems in other parts of the world (Faye et al. [2003]), refers to the substitution of extensive land use (grazing on wild forage plants) with intensive input use - essentially, camels are confined in a smaller spaces and live from purchased fodder, trucked in water supplies and modern veterinary medicines.
