Category Archives: Kenya

Pastoral reciprocity: A lesson in community ethos

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Impacts of drought in Kitengela in 2009

We heard today from Mohamed Said, a scientist leading research at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) on pastoral rangelands in eastern Africa, that Kitengela, a Maasai rangeland neighbouring Nairobi, is turning green again after good recent rains following last year's devastating drought, which the livestock herders in Kitengela say killed most of their livestock along with much of the area's wildlife. Interestingly, although already turned green with heavy rains that arrived early in this year, this rangeland remains virtually empty of cattle. It is, rather, full of sheep and goats. Kitengela's Maasai herders have driven all their cattle southeast to Emali. Said and ILRI Maasai partner Nickson ole Parmisa say that the herders will bring their cattle back home, to Kitengela, in another few weeks, when the grass in Kitengela, which is now new and short, has grown taller. Here is a case study in how Africa's pastoral societies continue to work, against all odds, as communities. Late last year, when the impacts of the drought in the Horn of Africa were peaking, Maasai herders from throughout Kenya's Kajiado District descended on Kitengela with their animal herds because they had heard that the Kitengela rangelands had had 'a few showers'. That was true in a few places, but with all the new livestock driven in to this one part of Kajiado, Kitengela was reduced to a dustbowl within a few days. With no forage to eat, the livestock of Kitengela perished soon after the stock that had been trekked in from far places. Many people began to question the wisdom of traditional pastoral movement on Africa's increasingly fragmented rangelands. Now, just a few months later, the Maasai herders of Emali are returning the hospitality, and mercy, shown them last year by their Kitengela cousins. It is now the Emali Maasai who are sharing their green grass (the rains came earlier to Emali than to Kitengela, so the grass at Emali is taller than that in Kitengela) with the hungry animals of Kitengela. While scientists at ILRI and elsewhere debate the wisdom of pastoral mobility (does it still work in today's crowded world?), what apparently is not in doubt is the wisdom of pastoral reciprocity.

ILRI, Equity Bank and UAP Insurance launch first-ever project to insure cows, camels and goats in Kenya’s arid north

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Satellite images of remote African lands are used to insure herders from devastating droughts

Arid lands

Thousands of herders in arid areas of northern Kenya will be able to purchase insurance policies for their livestock, based on a first-of-its-kind program in Africa that uses satellite images of grass and other vegetation that indicate whether drought will put their camels, cows, goats and sheep at risk of starvation.

The project was announced today in northern Kenya’s arid Marsabit District by the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), microfinance pioneer Equity Bank and African insurance provider UAP Insurance Ltd.

The index-based livestock insurance program will use satellite imagery to determine potential losses of livestock forage and issue payouts to participating herders when incidences of drought are expected to occur. If successful in the Marsabit District—where few of the 86,000 cattle and two million sheep and goat populations, valued at $67 million for milk and other products, are rarely slaughtered—the program would be offered to millions of semi-nomadic pastoralists and livestock keepers in other parts of the east African region.

“Today, our agents will begin selling insurance policies backed by UAP that for the first time will provide pastoral families in Kenya’s remote Marsabit District with a simple way to reduce their drought risk —the biggest threat to their cherished herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and camels—from devastating lives and livelihoods,” said Equity Bank Managing Director James Mwangi. “Livestock is the key asset for families in this region and securing this asset is critical to their ability to obtain credit and investments that can allow them to grow and prosper.”

ILRI, which is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), developed the project with partners at the Ministry of Development of Northern Kenya, Cornell University, Syracuse University, the BASIS program at University of Wisconsin, and the Index Insurance Innovation Initiative. The project is funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank and Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSD Kenya).

Insuring livestock of pastoral families has long had been considered impossible due to the formidable challenges of verifying deaths of animals that regularly are moved over vast tracts of land in search of food. ILRI and its partners have overcome this impediment by combining satellite images of vegetation in the Marsabit District with monthly surveys of livestock deaths to pinpoint the level of forage reduction that will cause animals to die. This program is different from all others because it does not pay clients based on the actual loss of their livestock assets, but rather on indicators that the animals are at risk of death.

“The reason this system can work is that getting compensation does not require verifying that an animal is actually dead,” said Andrew Mude, who is the project leader at ILRI. “Payments kick in when the satellite images, which are available practically in real time, show us that forage has become so scarce that animals are likely to perish.”

Droughts are frequent in the region—there have been 28 in the last 100 years and four in the past decade alone—and the losses they inflict on herders can quickly push pastoralist families into poverty. For example, the drought of 2000 was blamed for major animal losses in the district.

“Insurance is something of the Holy Grail for those of us who work with African livestock, particularly for pastoralists who could use insurance both as a hedge against drought—a threat that will become more common in some regions as the climate changes—and to increase their earning potential,” said ILRI Director General Carlos Seré.

The cost of the plans offered will vary depending on the number of animals and the area of coverage. The policies contain a clause akin to a deductible, in which a family would buy coverage that would pay-out when livestock losses are expected to exceed a certain level. “We believe this program has potential because it has the elements insurers need to operate, which is a well-known risk (drought), and an external indicator that is verifiable and can’t be manipulated, which in this case is satellite images of the vegetation,” said James Wambugu, Managing Director of UAP Insurance.

The data on forage availability are derived from satellite images of plant growth in the region that are part of a global survey known as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, or NDVI, a database regularly updated by scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). To develop the livestock insurance program, ILRI used NDVI data collected since 1981 estimating forage availability vegetation in the Marsabit District. This information was combined with data on livestock deaths that have been collected monthly since 2000 by the Kenya Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP) and USAID’s Pastoral Risk Management Project. The result is a statistical model that reliably predicts when and to what degree forage reductions will result in drought-related livestock deaths.

Given the complexity of index-based livestock insurance, ILRI and its partners have developed an insurance simulation game for local communities to explain the key features of the insurance policy and tested it across the Marsabit District. ILRI’s Mude said many of the herders who played the game became intensely involved in the simulation. “It helps them understand how insurance can protect them against losses. They also appear to simply enjoy playing the game itself, which generates a lot of animated discussion,” said Mude.

Mude said there is a potential for livestock insurance to be valuable even without a drought that triggers payments. For example, a policy could prevent stock losses by providing pastoralists the means to obtain credit for purchasing feed and drugs that would allow animals to survive the tough conditions. Similarly, pastoralists who want to expand their herds to take advantage of Africa’s rising demand for livestock products are likely to find it easier to obtain capital from private creditors now unwilling to lend due to the risks associated with droughts.

But more fundamentally, ILRI believes insurance can help avert an all too common catastrophe, and one that could occur with more regularity if climate change alters rainfall patterns in the region: droughts pushing pastoralist families into chronic impoverishment by inflicting losses from which the people cannot recover.

For further background information on project details visit the IBLI website and associates ILRI stories

Satellite images of remote African lands to be used to insure herders from devastating droughts

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ILRI, Equity Bank, and UAP Insurance Launch First-ever Project to Insure Cows, Camels, and Goats in Kenya’s Arid North Thousands of herders in arid areas of northern Kenya will be able to purchase insurance policies for their livestock, based on a first-of-its-kind program in Africa that uses satellite images of grass and other vegetation that indicate whether drought will put their camels, cows, goats, and sheep at risk of starvation. The project was announced today in northern Kenya's arid Marsabit District by the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), microfinance pioneer Equity Bank and African insurance provider UAP Insurance Ltd. “The reason this system can work is that getting compensation does not require verifying that an animal is actually dead,” said Andrew Mude, who is the project leader at ILRI. “Payments kick in when the satellite images, which are available practically in real time, show us that forage has become so scarce that animals are likely to perish.” Droughts are frequent in the region—there have been 28 in the last 100 years and four in the past decade alone—and the losses they inflict on herders can quickly push pastoralist families into poverty. For example, the drought of 2000 was blamed for major animal losses in the district. “Insurance is something of the Holy Grail for those of us who work with African livestock, particularly for pastoralists who could use insurance both as a hedge against drought—a threat that will become more common in some regions as the climate changes—and to increase their earning potential,” said ILRI Director General Carlos Seré. For more information, please contact: Jeff Haskins at +254 729 871 422 or +254 770 617 481; jhaskins@burnesscommunications.com or Muthoni Njiru at +254 722 789 321 or m.njiru@cgiar.org Background Materials Project Summary

Milk–the perfect food: South-South East Africa-South Asia symposium

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A South-South Symposium to Improve Safety and Distribution in the Dairy Sector
1 – 4 December 2009, Nairobi, Kenya

South to South

In both India and East Africa some 80-90% of milk is handled by the informal, un-organized dairy sector. We usually associate milk with cattle, but domesticated ungulates such as sheep, goats, yaks, water buffalo, horses, and camels are other primary milk producers in developing countries. The largest producer and consumer of cattle’s milk in the world is India.

Milk provides the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food, and carries the mother’s antibodies to the baby. It can reduce the risk of many diseases in the baby. The exact components of raw milk varies by species, but it contains significant amounts of saturated fat, protein and calcium as well as vitamin C.

The food value of an animal killed for meat can be matched by perhaps one year’s worth of milk from the same animal, which will keep producing milk—in convenient daily portions—for years.

Despite the importance of this simple, opaque liquid, there has been little education in the handling of such an important nutritional substance nor to the organization of its distribution.

In Kenya, which has the largest dairy herd in Africa, including South Africa, about 1.6 million rural smallholder households depend on dairy production for their main livelihood, and dairy is the largest agricultural subsector by contribution to GDP, larger than horticulture, tea or coffee. Again, the large majority of these producers depend on the informal sector market, which employs over 30,000 people along the supply chain. Despite their immense contribution to livelihoods, informal milk marketing systems have historically suffered neglect and opposition from decision-makers and development agents, often because of concerns over quality and safety.

In East Africa, key players have been meeting regularly over the last three years to share lessons on these issues under an association formed to facilitate exchange of new approaches and to harmonize policies, the East Africa Dairy Regulators Association Council (EADRAC). With the nascent development of awareness in India of possibilities for upgrading informal markets, an event to allow the sharing of lessons with key players in East Africa engaged in similar milk marketing systems would be of immense benefit to both sides and the researchers involved.

To this end, a symposium is proposed that would bring together the key researchers and decision-makers from East Africa and northeast India concerning the informal dairy sector. Key outputs will be shared experiences and demonstrations of innovation through structured field visits and presentations of approaches and evidence. This will support the dissemination of new approaches for managing the informal sector that will improve the livelihoods of millions working in the informal dairy sectors of both regions, as well as consumers of milk and dairy products.

Case studies on these topics will be presented and specific strategies and recommendations developed. Participants will be dairy decision-makers and researchers from India and East Africa. The symposium will be linked to a regional EADRAC meeting to be held in East Africa and is provisionally planned for 1 – 4 Dec 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya. The symposium is being organized by the International Livestock Research Institute and the Association (ILRI) for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa.

Programme:
Days 1-2: Representatives from EADRAC, India, ASARECA and ILRI will share and discuss case study presentations.
Day 3: Synthesis of lessons
Day 4: Field tour

Improving cattle genetics with in vitro embryo production technology

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Livestock scientists from ILRI and the Clinical Studies Department of the University of Nairobi (UON) recently succeeded in breeding Kenya’s first test-tube calf using a technique called in vitro embryo production (IVEP). IVEP makes it possible to rapidly multiply and breed genetically superior cattle within a short generation interval.
Why is this important?
For several reasons. First, livestock is the fastest growing sub-sector in the world, as increasing trends of 114% in demand for meat and 133% for milk attest. To improve on food security, it is essential to double livestock production in the developing world by 2020. IVEP is clearly one of the most efficient ways to accomplish this.

Second, let’s consider the problem of environmental impact. Doubling livestock production through traditional breeding techniques increases pressure on natural resources—water, land and biodiversity. So the need for enhanced efficiency without degrading natural resources is urgent. Again, IVEP, which requires only laboratory equipment in the production process, comes to the rescue.

Third, there is the biodiversity issue. Matching genotypes to environment is crucial. Scientists need to take several factors into consideration—among them adaptation, tolerance for disease, tolerance for new environments and alignment to market development. Although plenty of genetic diversity exists, thus far we’ve done little with it. Once more, IVEP could be the answer.

Fourth, IVEP has significant commercial potential because farmers can rent their best cows as donors and their lower-quality cows as surrogates.

Most importantly, we need to look closely at the constraints faced by small-scale livestock keepers.

  • Cattle genotypes and production environments, as often as not, do not match. Result:  low productivity.
  • Heifer replacement programs take a long time and are rarely done properly. Result: supply is low, prices are high.
  • Sex ratios are often disadvantageous. Result: too many males and high production costs.
  • The commercial relevance of many indigenous breeds is not optimised. Result: farmers incur unsupportable losses.
  • Programs for breed conservation and preservation are often improper. Result: some breeds are threatened by extinction and no gene pool for replacement exists.

IVEP does not—and should not—completely replace traditional reproductive technologies such as conventional embryo transfer (ET) and artificial insemination. Each of these techniques has its place, and each of them utilizes tissues, embryos and semen for improvement and reconstruction of cattle breeds. The difference is that while the traditional ET techniques involve more animals and are wholly done in the field, IVEP is undertaken in the lab and involves fewer surrogate animals in the field. IVEP eliminates the tedious steps of synchronizing donor cows.

Specifically, IVEP technology as a breeding tool has the distinct advantage of maximizing utilization of appropriate dam and sire genotypes by:

  • increasing efficiency of multiplication in breeding;
  • permitting  determination of sex of the offspring; and
  • permitting pre-testing of actual fertility status of the bull.

Thus, while natural mating or artificial insemination are necessarily slow and inefficient, producing only 10-15 offspring per life span of a cow …

…IVEP can produce up to 300 offspring per life span.

The SIFET Project: a successful IVEP program
The Sexed semen in-vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (SIFET) project was designed to exploit and promote the potential of applying IVEP reproductive technique to:

  • develop, multiply and disseminate female crossbreeds that appropriately match with production environment;
  • provide a system to preserve top bovine genotypes in cases of accidental culling in a recycle-like scheme (slaughterhouse collection); and
  • identify, multiply and conserve selected superior desirable breed traits.

The project involved collecting ovaries from slaughter houses or picking ovum from live cows. When the genetic material is brought to the lab, oocytes with high developmental competence are selected and morphological evaluation done. Once the ideal oocytes are identified, they are matured in vitro for 22-24 hours. The subsequent in vitro fertilization process is conducted for a period of 18-22 hours with a high sperm concentration. The fertilization itself requires removal of seminal plasma and extenders, separation of motile sperms from dead ones and induction of sperm capacitation. Once the embryos are formed, they are cultured in the lab for 7 days and then transferred to surrogates.

A conception rate of about 40% has been achieved, with calves born without abnormalities.

Conclusions

  1. IVEP technology is feasible in Kenya.
  2. Commercialization of the process should be facilitated as soon as supportive policies and proper legal/regulatory frameworks are in place

Challenges
Poor field heat detections leading to poor uterine synchrony and lower conceptions are concerns, as is the high genotype variability characteristic of animals brought to slaughterhouses.

Way forward and prospects
Looking ahead, the collaborating scientists anticipate bringing ovum pick-up (OPU) and cryopreservation into the picture as well as capacity building.

Clearly, such programs can help match breeds to appropriate production systems to ensure sound breeding programs. Where and when necessary, new breeds can be introduced within a relatively short period of time. Above all, embryos are far easier to transport across continents than live animals.

Through IVEP technology and well-planned crossbreeding programs such as SIFET that integrate the use of indigenous cows as donors and surrogates while using semen from appropriate (more productive and reasonably adapted) dairy breeds such as Jerseys, F1 heifers suited to the smallholder farmers’ conditions can be produced.

Niche markets for the technology and its F1 products should be further explored and exploited, notably with regard to the potential of forestalling the threat to key wildlife species.

Acknowledgements
Funding for the project was made available by Heifer Project International. UON provided the technical team and recipient animals. Administration and laboratory facilities were provided by ILRI. The cooperation of the abattoirs (the source of ovaries) and the animal owners are gratefully acknowledged. The capacity building program through a joint CNPq grant for the Embrapa-UON-ILRI partnership, as well as support from Dr Luiz Carmago and Dr Joao Viana of Embrapa, are highly appreciated.

The collaborating scientists are Mwai Okeyo, Henry Mutembei and Bridgit Syombua from ILRI; and  Erastus Mutiga, Victor Tsuma and Henry Mutembei from Clinical Studies, UON.

For more information, contact Dr Okeyo Mwai, Animal Geneticist/Breeder, Biotechnology Theme, ILRI, at o.mwai@cgiar.org.

American TV show ’60 Minutes’ features ILRI research in Masai Mara

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Reid_2002

The work of ecologist Robin Reid, who spent 15 years conducting pastoral research at the Nairobi headquarters of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and is now Director for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University, in Fort Collins, is featured in a current segment of the American television program ’60 Minutes’, which aired last Sunday, 3 October 2009. You can view the segment on the 60 Minutes website here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5362301n

This story of the great annual wildebeest migration, the last such spectacle of big mammals on the move, focuses on two things—the danger that destruction of Kenya’s Mau Forest presents to the Mara River, the artery that keeps the wildlife and livestock in the Masai Mara region alive, and the hope for sustaining both wildlife populations and the Maasai’s pastoral livelihoods presented by new public-private initiatives called wildlife conservancies.

Poverty reduction lies behind both the danger and the hope.

Kenyan governments have allowed poor farmers to inhabit the Mau Forest, high above the Mara Game Reserve, which provides the waters for the Mara River. These farmers fell the trees to grow crops and make a living. The current government has recently acted to evict these communities to protect this important watershed.

Downstream, meanwhile, Maasai livestock herders, who have provided stewardship for the wildlife populations they live amongst for centuries, are bearing the brunt of the declining water in the Mara River, which threatens both their livestock livelihoods and the populations of big mammals and other wildlife that have made the Mara Game Reserve famous worldwide. Robin Reid says that should the Mara River disappear entirely, some experts estimate some 400,000 animals would likely perish in the very first week.

The new wildlife conservancies being developed in the lands adjacent to the Reserve are also about poverty reduction. They are an ambitious attempt by the local Maasai and private conservation and tourist companies to serve the needs both of the local livestock herders and the many people wanting to conserve resources for the wildlife. The conservancies are paying the Maasai to leave some of their lands open for wildlife. They appear to be working well, with the full support of the local Maasai. Dickson ole Kaelo, who is leading the conservancy effort, was recently a partner in an ILRI research project called Reto-o-Reto, a Maasai term meaning ‘I help you, you help me’. Dickson was a science communicator in that 3-year project, which found ways to help both the human and wildlife populations of this region. In his new role as developer of conservancies, Dickson and his community have managed to bring nearly 300 square miles of Mara rangelands under management by the conservancies, which pay equal attention to people and animals.

The long-term participatory science behind this story is demonstrable proof that, difficult as they are to find and develop, ways to help both people and wildlife, both public and private goods, exist, if all stakeholders come together and if the political will and policy support are forthcoming.

In other, drier, rangelands of Kenya, now experiencing a great drought that is killing half the livestock herds of pastoralists, some experts are predicting an end to pastoral ways of life. Other experts are predicting the end of big game in Kenya. Both, ILRI’s research indicates, are tied to one another. It appears unlikely that either will be saved without the other.

Drought hits Kenya’s livestock herders hard

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Llivestock in the current kenya drought

Drought hits Kenya’s livestock herders hard, forcing some communities out of self-reliant pastoral ways of life (photo credit: ILRI/Mann).

Stories of the two-year drought biting deep in pastoral lands in the Horn of Africa are heartbreaking. Kenya’s livestock herders are being hit particularly hard. More than three-quarters of Kenya comprises arid and semi-arid lands too dry for growing crops of any kind. Only pastoral tribes, able to eke out a living by raising livestock on common grasslands, can make a living for themselves and their families here, where rainfall is destiny. With changes in the climate bringing droughts every few years in this region of eastern Africa, some doubt that traditional pastoral ways of life, evolved in this region over some 12,000 years, can long survive. Climate change here is not an academic discussion but rather a matter of life and death. But pastoral knowledge of how to survive harsh climates—largely by moving animals to take advantage of common lands where the grass is growing—is needed now more than ever.

This is especially true in Africa, whose many vast drylands are expected to suffer greater extremes in climate in future. Two of the recent reports are from America’s Public Radio International (‘Drought in East Africa’: <http://www.pri.org/business/nonprofits/drought-east-africa1629.html>) and the UK’s Guardian newspaper (‘The last nomads: Drought drives Kenya’s herders to the brink’: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/drought-kenya-nomads>). The Guardian article tells a heart-breaking story about “pastoral dropouts”, a story that may mark “not simply the end . . . of generations of nomadic existence in the isolated lands where Kenya meets Somalia and Ethiopia, but the imminent collapse of a whole way of life that has been destroyed by an unprecedented decade of successive droughts”.

The article says this region has experienced three serious droughts in the last decade, when formerly a drought occurred every 9 to 12 years. This change in global weather patterns ‘has been whittling away at the nomads’ capacity to restock with animals—to replenish and survive—normally a period of about three years”. The Economist in its 19 September 2009 edition says global warming is creating a ‘bad climate for development’ (<http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14447171>). The article says that poor countries’ economic development will contribute to climate change—but they are already its victims. ‘Most people in the West know that the poor world contributes to climate change, though the scale of its contribution still comes as a surprise. Poor and middle-income countries already account for just over half of total carbon emissions (see chart 1); Brazil produces more CO2 per head than Germany. The lifetime emissions from these countries’ planned power stations would match the world’s entire industrial pollution since 1850.

‘Less often realised, though, is that global warming does far more damage to poor countries than they do to the climate. In a report in 2006 Nicholas (now Lord) Stern calculated that a 2°C rise in global temperature cost about 1% of world GDP. But the World Bank, in its new World Development Report <http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14447171#footnote1> , now says the cost to Africa will be more like 4% of GDP and to India, 5%. Even if environmental costs were distributed equally to every person on earth, developing countries would still bear 80% of the burden (because they account for 80% of world population). As it is, they bear an even greater share, though their citizens’ carbon footprints are much smaller . . . . ‘The poor are more vulnerable than the rich for several reasons. Flimsy housing, poor health and inadequate health care mean that natural disasters of all kinds hurt them more. ‘The biggest vulnerability is that the weather gravely affects developing countries’ main economic activities—such as farming and tourism. Global warming dries out farmland. Since two-thirds of Africa is desert or arid, the continent is heavily exposed. One study predicts that by 2080 as much as a fifth of Africa’s farmland will be severely stressed.’

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and its local and international partners are working to help pastoral communities in this region increase their resilience in the face of the current drought, as well as population growth, climate change, and other big changes affecting pastoral ways of life.

  1. Scientists are helping Maasai communities in the Kitengela rangelands of Kenya (outside Nairobi) obtain and use evidence that new schemes to pay herders small sums of money per hectare to keep their lands unfenced are working for the benefit of livestock and wildlife movements alike.
  2. Scientists are helping Maasai communities in the rangelands surrounding Kenya’s famous Masai Mara National Reserve to obtain and use evidence that public-private partnerships now building new wildlife conservancies that pay pastoralists to leave some of their lands for wildlife rather than livestock grazing are win-win options for conservationists and pastoral communities alike.
  3. Scientists have refined and mass produced a vaccine against the lethal cattle disease East Coast fever—and are helping public-private partnerships to regulate and distribute the vaccine in 11 countries of eastern, central and southern Africa where the disease is endemic—so that pastoral herders can save some of their famished livestock in this drought from attack by disease, and use those animals to rebuild their herds when the drought is over.
  4. Scientists are characterizing and helping to conserve the indigenous livestock breeds that Africa’s pastoralists have kept for millennia—breeds that have evolved special hardiness to cope with harsh conditions such as droughts and diseases—so that these genetic traits can be more widely used to cope with the changing climate.

But much more needs to be done. And it needs to be done much more closely with the livestock herding communities that have so much to teach us about how to cope with a changing and variable climate.

Staying Maasai? Livelihoods, conservation and development in East Africa rangelands

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Staying Maasai

As East Africa’s iconic tribe changes with the times to keep its pastoral heritage alive, will the herders also be able and willing to save the wildlife populations around them? (photo credit: ILRI/Mann).

Every year, over a million people visit the national parks and game reserves in East Africa, generating up to nearly US$2 billion a year in revenue. The most famous of these parks are in the Maasai heartland straddling the Kenya-Tanzania border. This ‘Maasailand’ supports the most diverse concentrations of big mammals left on earth.

Often overlooked is the abundance of wildlife mixed with livestock and pastoral peoples on grasslands adjacent to the parks and reserves—and the ways these pastoral herders and their animal stock contribute to the balance of these wildlife-rich savanna ecosystems.

A new book, Staying Maasai? Livelihoods, Conservation and Development in East African Rangelands, looks at thirty years of research on East Africa’s iconic Maasai people. In it, a group of international researchers argue for big and deep changes in the region’s policies affecting Maasailand and its people.

Semi-nomadic herders have maintained a pastoral way of life, co-existing with the wildlife in this region, for several thousand years. But that balance appears to have reached its tipping point. A recent study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), for example, has shown dramatic declines of six species of wild ungulates (hoofed animals)—giraffes, hartebeest, impala, warthogs, topis and waterbuck—in Kenya’s famous Masai Mara Game Reserve, in just the last 15 years. The researchers found that these wildlife declines are linked to growing human populations crowding at the boundaries of the Reserve, which are transforming these former grasslands, the traditional ‘dispersal lands’ for wildlife, into urban settlements and crop and livestock farms, thus fragmenting the former wildlife habitats.

Staying Maasai? portrays the many ways Maasai are adapting to—and driving—rapid environmental, political and societal changes. Substantial components of the book are a product of a collaborative research program, ‘Assessing Trade-offs between Poverty Alleviation and Wildlife Conservation’, involving a multidisciplinary and international group of natural and social scientists and their Maasai collaborators, funded by the Belgian Government and coordinated by ILRI. The book’s authors encourage decision-makers to look to the Maasai peoples themselves for sustainable solutions to conserving both wildlife and pastoral lifestyles, noting that contrary to conventional wisdom, few Maasai families are yet benefiting much from wildlife tourism. A fresh look at land, pastoral and conservation policies is urgently needed to ensure the survival of this community and its wildlife-rich pastoral lands in Kenya and Tanzania.

Wildlife revenues reach few Maasai people
The findings in this volume counter national policy maxims in Kenya and Tanzania by demonstrating the generally disappointing performance of wildlife for local livelihoods. While delivering significant returns to a few landowning households living adjacent to top-end wildlife eco-tourist destinations, wildlife brings very limited returns to most Maasai households.
A case study included in this book on wildlife and Maasai living in the Kitengela region just outside Kenya’s capital of Nairobi shows that leasing and other ecosystem services payment schemes are promising ways to enhance local livelihoods. Much more work needs to be done, however, to fulfil the promise of these schemes to benefit most of the pastoral people living in wildlife areas. Allowing the schemes to merely hobble on will fail to stop the continuing declines of wildlife and continuing impoverishment of most Maasai.

The lasting value of pastoral livestock production
The research findings reported in this volume confirm the continued centrality of livestock to local livelihoods across Maasailand, making clear the lasting economic importance and resilience of pastoral livestock production. Katherine Homewood, professor of anthropology at University College London, who is a lead author and co-editor of the book, writes in the final chapter that livestock production should not be viewed ‘as some romanticized throwback to an earlier age, but as a robust and vital component of twenty-first century livelihoods in Maasai rangelands.’

Four policy lessons
With a wide range of livelihood strategies now being pursued in East Africa’s Maasailand, pastoral policy needs to take better account of the situation evolving on the ground.

(1) Support livestock production.
First and foremost, says Katherine Homewood, policy needs to take account of ‘the central nature and resilience of livestock production in the rangelands, and to embrace and foster pastoral production, supporting mobility, access to key resources, veterinary provision and marketing infrastructures.’ Homewood argues that ‘Rather than dismissing pastoral production as backward, unproductive and as failing to contribute to the national economy,’ Kenyan and Tanzanian national policies need to recognize the actual worth of this form of land use. She says these issues are insufficiently addressed in Kenya’s draft National Livestock Policy and that Tanzania’s current policies not only deny pastoralists some of their basic rights (by evicting pastoralists from some areas and denying others grazing land tenure), but in addition are counter-productive to Tanzania’s stated aims for achieving environmental and economic sustainability.

(2) Limit cultivation.
Second, governments need to be more realistic about the potential for, and impacts of, intensifying or extending crop cultivation across the rangelands to replace pastoralist livestock production. ‘It is unrealistic to envisage a major increase in food production from cultivation in arid and semi-arid rangelands,’ writes Homewood, ‘given the agro-ecological limitations both of water availability and of soil fertility.’

(3) Encourage non-farm employment.
Third, governments need to foster potential for non-farm employment in Maasailand through rural industries and better education. ‘The potential of pastoral systems will be realized only with better educational and rural diversification opportunities,’ says Homewood, ‘and acknowledgement of the importance of pastoral livestock production.’

(4) Distribute tourist revenues.
Finally, governments and conservation groups need to rethink their understanding of the contribution of wildlife conservation to rural livelihoods. Homewood concludes that ‘The structure of the tourist industry needs to change to allow landowners in Kenya to capture more than the 5% of revenues they are estimated to receive.’

For more information on the book Staying Maasai? and the complexity of ILRI’s work, click on the links below.

Table of Content PDF
Chapter One Introduction PDF
Chapter Four Kitengela PDF
Chapter Ten Wildlife PDF

To order a copy: Staying Maasai? Order form

More relevant information:
1.ILRI wildlife study press release
2.Mara study press room
3.Mara report- MEDIA COVERAGE

For more information please contact:

Dr. Patti Kristjanson
Leader, Innovation Works Initiative
International Livestock Research Institute
Telephone: +254-20-422-3000
Email: P.Kristjanson@cgiar.org
Website: www.ilri.org/InnovationWorks

Award-winning ILRI geneticist takes up prestigious UK appointment

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After 13 years with ILRI, geneticist Oliver Hanotte is taking up a new appointment at the University of Nottingham.
ILRI geneticist Olivier Hanotte starts his new position as professor of population genetics and conservation at the University of Nottingham, UK on 1st January. He will also be the director of a charity based at the university called Frozen Ark. The charity is concerned with the ex situ conservation of endangered animals, including wildlife as well as livestock.

Hanotte joined ILRI in 1995 when the Nairobi-based International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) merged with the Addis Ababa-based International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA). Since then ILRI has shifted from a predominantly African focus to a global focus, with ILRI offices not only in East, West and Southern Africa but also in South Asia and South East Asia, providing new opportunities for Hanotte’s research focus.

Research highlights
In his 13 years at ILRI, animal geneticist Olivier Hanotte has worked to unravel the diversity of developing-world livestock using the latest molecular technologies of DNA sequencing and genotyping.

ILRI deputy director general – research, John McDermott, says ‘In 1995, when Hanotte began his work at ILRI, we knew that the world’s livestock diversity was shrinking fast, but no one knew exactly what was being lost and where we should target conservation efforts. Africa and Asia’s genetic diversity was largely unknown and unmapped.

‘We now have a much better picture of the livestock diversity hotspots in Africa and Asia and where the world needs to focus its conservation and genetic improvement efforts. This is due in large part to Hanotte’s scientific leadership, commitment to scientific excellence, innovative partnerships and capacity building activities across two continents’ says McDermott.

In 2003, Hanotte became leader of ILRI’s project on Improving Animal Genetic Resources Characterization. He has supervised project members working in Nairobi, Addis Ababa and, since 2005, in Beijing at a joint laboratory established with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science on livestock and forage genetic resources. He has established long term collaborations with several research institutes such as Trinity College at the University of Dublin (Ireland), Rural Development Agency, RDA (South Korea) and the joint FAO-IAEA division in Seibersdorf and Vienna (Austria).

Seminal work by Hanotte and his team has disclosed the origin and distribution of genetic diversity of livestock species including cattle, sheep, goat, yak and chicken in Africa and Asia. These findings are now providing a rationale for targeted conservation and utilization programs for developing-country livestock breeds at risk of extinction. This work also gives us a glimpse into the distant past of the peoples and civilizations of Africa and Asia.

Hanotte’s research has been published in leading scientific journals, including Science, PNAS, Animal Genetics and Molecular Ecology. He has produced over 80 scientific publications and received several international awards, including the CGIAR Science Award in 2003 for Outstanding Scientific Article. He has also supervised and co-supervised research projects of over 50 students and scientists.

Hanotte and colleagues at ILRI continue to break new ground. Current work includes research to better understand and characterize the adaptive traits of indigenous livestock to their local production environments, specifically the genetic and adaptive mechanisms for resistance and tolerance to infection and disease. Research includes tolerance of trypanosome infections in ruminants, resistance to gastro-intestinal worms in sheep and resistance to avian viral infection in poultry. Their work supports the new field of ‘livestock landscape genomics’, which has the long-term and ambitious aim of exploiting advances in the genomics and information revolutions to reliably match breeds to environments and sustainably increase livestock productivity.

Recognized as a leading expert in livestock diversity, Hanotte was invited to write the opening chapter, on the Origin and History of Livestock Diversity, for a major FAO-led study, ‘The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture’, released at a Swiss conference in September 2007. He serves on the editorial boards of two major livestock journals (Animal Genetics and the Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics), and as a regular scientific referee for major scientific journals. His group collaborate with ILRI’s sister CGIAR institution ICARDA in the characterization of the genetic resources of small ruminants.

Hanotte says, ‘I’m very much looking forward to my new position, but leaving ILRI is bittersweet. I have spent the greater part of professional life here in Kenya. I will greatly miss my colleagues and the rich culture of Africa. But I also know that there will be opportunities for collaborations in the future’

‘When you are studying or working in the North, you can get distorted information about Africa and Asia. And you can become removed from the realities. One of the big advantages of working with ILRI is that you’re based in a developing country. That means you’re never too far away from the people that you’re working for. ILRI is an open door to African and Asian farming societies and cultures’

Contacts:

Olivier Hanotte
Professor of Population and Conservation Genetics /Director of theFrozen Ark
School of Biology
University of Nottingham
Nottingham
NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
email: olivier.hanotte@nottingham.ac.uk

John McDermott
Deputy Director General – Research
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Nairobi, Kenya
Email: j.mcdermott@cgiar.org

Further information:
Olivier Hanotte’s recent published research on BioInfoBank: http://lib.bioinfo.pl/auth:Hanotte,O
Overview of ILRI research on Improving Animal Genetic Resources Characterization
The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
Frozen Ark website http://www.frozenark.org/

Do you want your research to make a greater difference?
View research opportunities with ILRI

Rift Valley fever ‘may strike again’ soon

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As fears have been growing that Rift Valley fever could hit East African countries again in early 2009, a research-based 'toolkit' is helping the Kenya Government to manage the risk to human and animal lives.
 

Songs of PraiseThe Government of Kenya and its partners are preparing for a Rift Valley fever outbreak if the short rains of this East African region are unseasonably heavy or prolonged in high-risk areas during December 2008 and January 2009 (FEWSNET: 11 December 2008). Livestock keepers are being urged to report unusually high numbers of animal deaths or sick animals with increased rates of abortion, low milk yields, yellowing of eyes, blood-stained nasal discharges or blood in faeces.

In September 2008, EMPRES WATCH, the newsletter of the Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases, a unit of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), issued a chilling warning to countries in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula that Rift Valley fever could strike again soon.

ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Christine Jost says: 'While heavy rains in northern Kenya and elsewhere generated concerns that Rift Valley fever might reappear in the rainy season (October–November 2008), there have been no outbreaks of the disease reported yet in Kenya. A reported outbreak in Saudi Arabia is being controlled.'

The last outbreak of Rift Valley fever in East Africa, in late 2006 and early 2007, killed more than 300 people in Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia and severely disrupted the local and regional livestock trade and associated livelihoods. In Kenya alone, economic losses were estimated to have exceeded US$30 million, with the country’s poorest pastoral peoples bearing the brunt of the losses.

The EMPRES warning was based on climatic models that track anomalous sea-surface temperatures in the Indian and Pacific oceans. With or without accompanying El Ñino events, these have been shown to be associated with abnormally prolonged and heavy rainfall in East Africa.

Rift Valley fever is spread initially by mosquitoes feeding on livestock; unusually heavy rainfall and subsequent widespread flooding provide ideal conditions for the generation of vast swarms of these insects. Very unusually, this year a ‘positive Indian Ocean Dipole’ has been detected for the third consecutive year. This phenomenon was associated with serious outbreaks of Rift Valley fever in East Africa in 2006/07, in Sudan in 2007 and in Madagascar in 2007/08.

Over the past 70 years or so, Rift Valley fever outbreaks in East Africa have occurred on average every 10 years; before 2006, the last outbreak had occurred in 1997/98. The apparent increase in frequency of outbreaks in the region starting in 2006 may indicate that climate change is already impacting this and other diseases associated with specific climatic conditions

What is Rift Valley fever?

Rift Valley fever is a viral disease that mostly affects cattle, sheep, goats and camels and sometimes also infects people. In arid and semi-arid part of East Africa, it is associated with abnormally heavy rainfall and flooding, which provides ideal conditions for mosquitoes to emerge and breed. Livestock bitten by mosquitoes infected with the virus that causes Rift Valley fever can themselves become infected, after which a wide range of biting insects transmit the disease further.

The females of one group of mosquitoes (Aedes) can pass the virus to their eggs, which can survive for long periods of time in the soil. When flooding occurs in an area, the eggs in the soil hatch and those carrying the virus quickly develop into adult mosquitoes already infected with virus, which then transmit the virus to livestock.

It is thought that people become infected with Rift Valley fever mostly through close contact with infected livestock: animal health workers and those involved in slaughtering and butchering infected animals are at most risk. The general public is at little risk so long as people thoroughly cook any meat they eat.

Although most human Rift Valley fever cases are mild and present as flu-like conditions, the disease can be much more severe and lead to death.

 
Lessons learned from the 2006/07 outbreaks
In late 2006, pastoralists in northeastern Kenya observed unusually heavy rainfall and flooding, the emergence of swarms of Aedes mosquitoes and the first cases of the livestock disease they recognized as Rift Valley fever—all before an international Rift Valley fever warning was issued. Although the pastoralists reported the situation to local authorities, the flooded roads and heavy rains, in addition to the region’s remoteness and generally poor infrastructure, made acting on the reports problematic. Many roads became impassable, for example, and much of the affected region lay outside areas with mobile phone coverage. Official action in the affected and at-risk communities was taken only with the first reports of human cases, by which time it was already too late to contain the outbreak in livestock and prevent human deaths.

  • ILRI and the Kenyan and Tanzanian veterinary departments worked together to conduct a series of studies of the 2006/07 outbreak, from which several lessons emerged.
  • A government-approved contingency plan to control outbreaks of Rift Valley fever should be in place well before a possible outbreak.
  • A system should be established to make emergency funds available at an early stage of an outbreak (before human cases occur).
  • International early warning systems should be supplemented with local systems that enable pastoralists and other people in the affected areas to report unusual weather and mosquito occurrences and suspected cases of Rift Valley fever in both animals and people. The widespread availability of mobile phones and increasing mobile phone coverage now make such an approach more feasible than in the past.
  • Existing vaccines for livestock are difficult to use effectively in East Africa because:

    • the disease occurs in remote areas with poor infrastructure
    • neither manufacturers nor veterinary authorities routinely maintain large stocks of vaccine for Rift Valley fever
    • vaccine manufacturers need several months’ warning to produce sufficient new batches of the vaccine to enable sufficient populations of at-risk animals to be vaccinated
    • the existing vaccine is not ideal; it causes abortion in pregnant animals
    • vaccinating animals after cases of Rift Valley fever have been detected in a herd risks spreading the virus further via the needle used for the vaccinations
    • the long intervals between outbreaks of Rift Valley fever make routine vaccination of large numbers of livestock against the disease appear prohibitively expensive.
  • Effective communication is vital to managing outbreaks of Rift Valley fever; all those in close contact with livestock, for example, should be informed of the risks associated with slaughtering livestock and handling carcasses. Clear, authoritative messaging is perhaps the single most important action that can be taken to prevent loss of human as well as animal life.
  • Because the disease is transmitted between livestock and people, it is essential that medical and veterinary authorities collaborate closely with each other to prevent and control outbreaks.

A decision-support tool is used for contingency planning
Once an outbreak of Rift Valley fever occurs, the disease spreads rapidly, leaving little time for authorities and affected communities to weigh options and make decisions. And due to the on-average decade-long interval between outbreaks, many of those with firsthand experience of an outbreak are no longer in their posts to tackle the next.

To address this, FAO and ILRI worked with multiple stakeholders to improve control of Rift Valley fever by developing a ‘decision-support’ tool. Targeted at directors of veterinary services in the East Africa region, the tool divides an outbreak of Rift Valley fever into a sequence of 12 key events, including the normal inter-epidemic period. For each event or period, the tool recommends a set of actions to facilitate timely, evidence-based decision-making.  The tool helps decision-makers act early for prevention and control, based on an increasing levels of outbreak risk, rather than waiting for an outbreak to occur before action is taken.

Recently, in response to the Rift Valley fever warning issued by FAO, the decision-support tool was used by the Kenyan Veterinary Department to inform the drafting of a Rift Valley fever contingency plan. 

A new approach for safer food in informal markets

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Women play the major role in food supply in developing countries, but too often their ability to feed their families safely is compromised; one outcome is high levels of foodborne disease.
Millions of smallscale farmers in Africa, mostly women, supply the surging demand for livestock products. Most meat, milk, eggs, and fish is sold in informal markets where food safety regulation and inspection has failed and alternatives have not emerged. The result is high levels of foodborne disease amongst poor consumers and limited access to higher value markets for smallscale producers.

Safer foods benefits both producers and consumers
A new approach for safer food in informal marketsSafer livestock products can generate both health and wealth for the poor, but attaining safe food and safe food production in developing countries requires a radical change in food safety management. Now you can get quality food online and use coupons and discounts from Raise. International food safety standards are not always appropriate to developing countries due to lack of resources, infrastructure and incentives to encourage and monitor implementation.

 

In response to the problem of unsafe food in informal markets, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners have been conducting research on livestock market chains in urban Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria to better understanding the benefits and harms of livestock-keeping and how associated health risks can be better managed. A report on work in progress, entitled ‘Participatory risk assessment: a new approach for safer food in vulnerable African communities, was published in a special issue of Development in Practice.

Women are key players in food supply
A new approach for safer food in informal marketsILRI epidemiologist, food safety expert and lead author of the paper, Delia Grace says, ‘In rich countries eating out is a sign of wealth, but in developing countries it is often a sign of poverty. Buying ‘street’ food makes sense for the poor since it is often cheaper than buying cooking fuel and raw ingredients. Millions of poor people are dependent on these informal markets, where both raw and cooked animal source foods are prepared and sold.
‘Most of the food sold in these traditional markets is produced and prepared by women. It is a huge market but difficult to quantify or regulate. As a result, it tends to be ignored. But finding new approaches for making foods sold in informal markets safer will benefit both poor producers and poor consumers’ says Grace.

Food safety management needs to be adapted to local contexts
Risk-based approaches that take into account the extent of harm caused by food-borne disease to consumers and the likelihood of its happening are current international best practice. But these approaches are complex and do not work in informal settings in developing countries where most of the poor buy and sell their food.

A new approach for safer food in informal marketsRecognising the key role women play in food preparation and supply and the need to involve them in developing workable food safety solutions, the researchers developed a gender-sensitive participatory method. Their pro-poor risk-based approach to food safety contrasts with top-down hazard-based approaches that have failed to work in the past. The researchers have called their new approach for assessing and managing health risks associated with livestock ‘participatory risk analysis’.

ILRI economist and co-author, Tom Randolph, says ‘Studies that look for disease in informal markets will inevitably find it; the corollary is an enormous burden of sickness borne by poor consumers, as well as blocked access for poor farmers to emerging higher value outlets such as supermarkets.

 

‘Risk-based approaches to food safety need to be adapted to the context of informal markets. So we are focusing on the food producers – who are mostly women – and bringing communities and food safety implementers together to analyse local food safety problems and develop workable solutions.

‘We are convinced that integrating risk assessment with participatory methodologies and gender analysis is a promising solution to the problem of unsafe foods in informal markets.

‘And generating credible evidence is critical to better understanding and better managing food safety in developing countries’ concludes Randolph.

 

Earlier risk-based approach to raw milk management in Kenya

Food borne disease is often dismissed as a mild inconvenience. The symptoms, usually an upset stomach, vomiting and/or diahorrea, are short-lived and people recover quickly and fully. But foodborne illnesses are in fact very serious. Some can cause permanent irreversible damage and others can kill. Children, the elderly and sick are particularly vulnerable. Diahorrea, a common symptom of many foodborne illnesses, is a leading cause of death in children under five in developing countries. Safe food handling and storage practices reduce the risks of food poisoning, while cooking foods at high temperatures can kill bacteria that cause serious food related illnesses. Safer food benefits all consumers, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable.

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease (transmitted from infected animals to people). It is commonly transmitted by consuming food harbouring brucella organisms, usually raw/unpasteurized milk or products derived from untreated milk including yoghurt and cheese. Women infected with brucellosis can also transfer the bacteria to their babies through breast milk. Symptoms of brucellosis include fever, headache, sweating, joint pain and fatigue. If left untreated, symptoms can last up to a year.

Earlier smallholder dairy research conducted by ILRI and partners showed that although some raw milk sold by smallscale traders in Kenya did contain brucella, the risk of brucellosis was negligible as it is common practice across Kenya to boil all milk before drinking it. Boiling milk achieves the same results as pasteurization – harmful bacteria commonly found in raw milk, such as brucella and E. coli, are destroyed and the health risk to consumers is low.

This is an example of how focusing on risk (likely harm to the consumer) comes up with a very different conclusion than focusing on hazard (presence of bacteria in milk. By taking cultural/consumer practices into account, ILRI and partners generated evidence about the ‘real’ risks to public health and helped smallscale traders to continue selling their raw milk. The researchers also helped small traders raise their quality and safety standards by providing them with training and support to improve their food hygiene practices (read the food hygiene requirements here) and achieve quality accreditation within the formal market.

If hazard-based food safety standards that look for the presence of pathogens had been applied, raw milk would have been considered a serious health risk. But the alternative pro-poor risk-based approach was a win-win for Kenyan traders dependent on raw milk for their income and poor Kenyan consumers dependent on raw milk as a cheap and nourishing food source.

Further information: http://www.smallholderdairy.org

Citation
D. Grace, T. Randolph, J. Olawoye, M. Dipelou and E. Kang’ethe (2008) Participatory risk assessment: a new approach for safer food in vulnerable African communities. Development in Practice. Vol. 18, No.4, 611-618
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614520802181731

Further Information Contact:
Delia Grace, Veterinary epidemiologist, ILRI
Email: d.grace@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3460

Tom Randolph
Economist, ILRI
Email: t.randolph@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3067

Collective action on food crisis

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“Food Needs to Move!” Especially across national borders.
“The levers to solve this problem are in our own hands.”—Joseph Karugia

Collective action on food crisis

New research showing how the global food price crisis is playing out in 17 countries of eastern and central Africa was presented at a roundtable discussion in Nairobi 22 July 2008.

The research results show that the regional food situation differs significantly from the global one, largely because of this region’s exceptional diversity. That regional diversity provides these countries with opportunities to turn the volatile global and local food situations to their advantage.

By integrating markets and simplifying trade within the region, policymakers can efficiently link areas with food deficits to areas with food surpluses. This integration will help the region’s small farmers get better prices for their crops and livestock while also helping the region’s urban consumers get reliable year-round access to staple food items.

The July Roundtable on the Global Food Crisis was organized by the Kenya country offices of the World Bank and World Food Program and the Nairobi-headquartered International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Fifty key decision-makers in agricultural and rural development met on ILRI’s campus to discuss interventions that governments, development agencies, research organizations and nongovernmental organizations could make to help poor people cope with the rising prices of staple foods.

Joseph Karugia, a Kenyan agricultural economist, provided an overview of the regional food situation. Karugia coordinates a Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System for Eastern and Central Africa (ReSAKSS-ECA). His review was based on a study led by the region’s leading agricultural research group, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA). Under pressure by policymakers needing to take action to address the food price crisis, a team of 26 researchers within ASARECA and several centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) that work in this region, including ILRI, with study activities coordinated by ReSAKSS-ECA, conceived and executed the study together and with speed.

“Our regional food prices have generally risen much slower than global ones,” Karugia said. Even the countries within the region are being affected differently by the global food prices, largely because of their different “food baskets”. Kenya’s main staple is maize, but in Uganda it’s plantain, in Ethiopia it’s teff and in Rwanda it’s beans. Those countries that deal in non-traded commodities are buffered from the rising prices of globally traded staples. “Rice and wheat,” Karugia said, “two hugely important staples globally, are relatively trivial in this region. Moreover, most of the region’s maize needs are met outside the global markets because most people in the region obtain their maize in locally, in informal as well as formal markets.”

One result is that while the food price index (FPI) of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which captures trends in major food commodities, rose by 56% between March 2007 and March 2008, the FPI increases in this region were all below 40% and in most cases significantly lower. The FPI increased by 39% in Ethiopia, 20% in Burundi and Kenya, and just 11% in Tanzania. In several other countries in the region, including Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia, the increase was less than 10%.

It’s not only the staples of these neighbouring countries that differ. Their climate and rainfall patterns differ, and consequently their planting and harvest times differ, too.

These within-region variations give policymakers a powerful lever for transforming a global food crisis into a regional opportunity for farm producers and urban consumers alike.


“The spatial and temporal distribution of production and staggered harvesting
in the countries of eastern and southern Africa offer large opportunities for trade.”

By integrating the region’s food markets and simplifying its food trade regulations, Karugia said, the region could link up food-deficit to food-surplus areas and thus provide its citizens with staples in an given season. A truly integrated regional market would provide farmers with remunerative prices and alternative reliable markets for their produce while also providing urban consumers and rural net buyers of food with a variety of reasonably priced food staples throughout the year.

Most of the trade in food in this region is informal. It is wasteful not because it is informal but rather because of the many obstacles the informal traders have to face. Karugia explains: “At the border between Kenya and Uganda, trucks laden with sacks of grain and other food staples are unloaded, reloaded onto bicycles, bicycled across the border to be reloaded onto trucks on the other side. This is not an efficient way to move food!”

It would be a shame, Karugia said, quoting the economist Paul Romer, for the eastern and southern Africa region “to waste a good crisis”. “This global food price crisis provides the 19 countries of eastern and southern Africa with a golden opportunity to promote agricultural-led development through increased domestic production, regional trade and integration.”

The ASARECA research presented at this roundtable discussion was a demonstration of this new networked science. Diverse scientists from ReSAKSS-ECA, ASARECA and the CGIAR worked together for months amassing data from country and regional organizations and consulting with key experts and partners within governments, policy think tanks, research institutions, emergency relief agencies and the private sector. Although their individual perspectives on, and interpretations of, the data they collected vary considerably, the research group reached consensus on several points.

• The poor in this region are spending 40 to 70% of their income on buying food.
• The poor are being hit hardest by the rise in food prices, especially the rural net buyers of food.
• Contrary to popular belief, most of the farming households in the rural areas are net buyers rather than net producers of food if price rather than volume of food is considered. Poverty forces them to sell their grain and other crops at harvest time, when prices are at their lowest, and to buy grain again, several months later, when the households run out of the staple, often at two to three times the price at which they sold their grain.
• Prices of agricultural inputs are increasing across the 17 countries of the region. (The price of fertilizer rose 200% in Kenya in the last year.)
• Yields of staple food crops are stagnating or decreasing in 17 of the 19 countries of Eastern and Central Africa (only Egypt and Mauritius are increasing their yields) because farming is moving onto increasingly marginal agricultural lands, causing yield aggregates to fall.

One other salient fact leaped out of the data—the region cannot continue to spend less than 10% (and in some cases as low as 2%) of its national budgets in a sector that provides 25% of the region’s gross domestic product, 75% of its citizen’s livelihoods, and food for 100% of its people. ‘We have neglected our agriculture, our farmers and our food markets for decades,” says Karugia. “This is the result.”

Karugia and his many colleagues in this multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary, and multi-commodity project asked themselves one central question: What levers can we pull to take advantage of the higher food prices? The two conventional answers—increase farm production and control consumer demand—were deemed by the group to be too slow to be useful. This regional group of scientists concluded that a regional strategy for exploiting the food price hikes offered the best opportunities for the most numbers of people: “Exploit the regional diversity by facilitating regional trade”.

Priority actions for such a regional strategy would include the following:
• Markets: Remove export bans, eliminate non-trade barriers, simplify trade regulations and upgrade infrastructure along the region’s main trade corridors.
• Farmers: Reduce the high cost of fertilizer and other agricultural inputs and facilitate their trade, widen use of best-bet agricultural technologies, pilot innovative risk-management strategies such as index-based insurance schemes.
• Institutions: Strengthen market information and intelligence as well as frameworks for preparedness, response and learning.

Addressing these issues in these ways, with evidence-based policy options, is thus feasible, say the study team, and should lead to lowering the prices of food staples while also raising farm productivity and agricultural livelihoods.

In summing up the day’s roundtable discussion, host Carlos Seré, who is ILRI’s director general, said that it’s not only food we should be moving within the region but also the agricultural technologies that allow greater and more sustainable food production. The current food price crisis also has that silver lining: “When you have high food prices, you can move those technologies for improved food production. And you can get attention for neglected alternative crops, such as cassava chips for livestock feed. Which become viable as the price of grain staples rise.”

“This is something happening now,” Seré said. “We need smart interventions that target the region’s poor consumers and farmers alike. We need to get fertilizers into the region’s high potential farming areas. The key thing is to work with markets—to arbitrage across countries and across the region. We must reduce trade barriers within the region, which will greatly improve the efficiency of its markets.”

“We must also think through new crop portfolios for this region,” he continued. “How, for example, could we continue to support maize production in Kenya without penalizing those farmers pursuing a more diversified system that includes sorghum or millet?”

Seré concluded: “Climate and other fast-evolving changes affecting developing-country food production will make our problems worse in future. Finding the institutional frameworks for addressing these problems in collective action is our challenge.”

Welcome address by ILRI director general Carlos Seré

In welcoming participants to the roundtable forum, ILRI director general Carlos Seré said: “Global analysis of the food situation is relatively simple. We need to bring the discussion and analysis down to regional levels to increase the specificity, the granularity, of our information.” . . . Read more
Read profile of Carlos Seré
Interview with Ravi Prabhu, a member of the study team and coordinator of a CGIAR initiative called Collective Action for Eastern and Southern Africa

Let’s take a look at what we heard today from Joseph Karugia and his ASARECA, ReSAKSS-ECG and CGIAR team.

We heard that have opportunities to exploit regional food heterogeneity, capacities and systems that we are not doing a good job of exploiting . . . Read more


The latest version of the ASARECA Food Crisis Report is available: http://www.asareca.org/resources/reports/resp2food_pr_main.pdf

Further Information Contact:

Joseph Karugia
Coordinater, ReSAKSS-ECA
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Nairobi, KENYA
Email: j.karugia@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3016