Djelfa Province
Djelfa exhibits source-sink dynamics like a pastoral epicenter: 3.2 million sheep (12% of Algeria's flock) as steppe desertification accelerates.
Djelfa Province is Algeria's sheep capital, with 3.2 million head representing 12% of the national flock and generating up to 50% of regional GDP from pastoral activity. Located on the high steppe plateau between the Tell Atlas and Saharan Atlas, the province anchors a pastoral economy that has supported nomadic and semi-nomadic populations for millennia. This is source-sink dynamics at regional scale: Djelfa produces the protein that urban Algeria consumes.
The steppe ecosystem features Artemisia herba-alba (wormwood) and esparto grass—drought-resistant species that support an estimated 10-15 million sheep across Algeria's steppe zone. But the resource base is collapsing. Desertification advances as rainfall decreases and temperatures rise. Traditional north-south transhumance has declined as pastoralists sedentarize and intensify production. By 2025, sheep prices skyrocketed to luxury levels, forcing Algeria to import sheep from Romania and Spain. Local breeders raise alarms about feed costs and steppe degradation.
The province demonstrates a classic pastoral tragedy: intensive livestock systems optimize short-term production while degrading long-term carrying capacity. Djelfa produced 44,554 tons of red meat in 2014 (9% of national output), but this productivity consumes the very rangeland that enables it. The steppe that supported flexible nomadic movement is being fixed, fragmented, and exhausted—a pattern of resource degradation repeated across arid pastoral zones worldwide.