Holistic grasp of sector can unlock livestock trade in pastoralist areas
An armed herder drives camels along the Isiolo-Marsabit highway in 2018. The pastoralist communities in the arid and semi-arid area largely depend on livestock.
What you need to know:
- Livestock trade is receiving renewed government attention, starting with recent takeover of beef businesses by Kenya Defence Forces.
- Although a holistic picture of our livestock sector is the ideal starting point, we still lack basic data on live animal and chilled meat production and exports and local sales.
Several large-scale meat-processing abattoirs are under construction in the arid and semi-arid counties and the new impetus to revamp Kenya Meat Commission (KMC). The projects are largely conceived with the aim of tapping into the huge Middle East and North African meat market. Counties such as Isiolo have advertised for investors in export abbatoirs.
That has been lauded in some quarters as a gigantic step towards diversifying and increasing foreign exchange earnings and improving the livelihoods of livestock producers. But the business model of the abattoir has set off debate on operational and equity questions of rolling out such mega investments to revitalise pastoral livestock trade.
Historically, pastoralists in northern Kenya bartered livestock for agricultural produce supplied by communities in ‘down country’. But the British colonial rule upset the trade cart. Punitive measures like the alienation of Maasai grazing land to European ranchers created demand among Europeans for local cattle to stock their new ranches while taking strategic space in livestock and meat trade.
The tax burden by the British administration and imposition of quarantines to protect imported pedigree cattle in white ranches made entry of pastoralist to stronger trade network challenging, leaving an indelible mark on their livestock marketing.
The trade network fundamentally changed in the post-colonial period, shaped by Livestock Marketing Department and KMC through coordinating livestock auctions and the push to reorient the north-south market network towards pastoralist supplies.
In 1987, the meat industry was liberalised, promoting the emergence of micro slaughterhouses and the simultaneous collapse of the monopolistic KMC, which momentarily caused cessation of the export trade. In the 1960s and ’70s, Kenya exported, on average, 3,000 tonnes of chilled beef and 11,000 tonnes of canned beef and other meat products. But live animal and canned meat exports plummeted in the ’90s.
Livestock marketing policy
Livestock trade faced several bottlenecks and associated budgetary allocations biased towards crop agriculture. Livestock traders faced high transport and transaction costs, weak marketing policy and lack of knowledge on attribute preferences of importers.
The long-term absence of a comprehensive livestock marketing policy has set the stage for minimal investments in marketing infrastructure and limited coordination among investments. But the sector is receiving renewed government attention, starting with recent takeover of beef businesses by Kenya Defence Forces and efforts to regionalise markets by livestock-producing counties.
Although a holistic picture of our livestock sector is the ideal starting point, we still lack basic data on live animal and chilled meat production and exports and local sales. The situation of livestock marketing from pastoral areas is always defined largely by unfavourable terms of trade. Pastoralists are price takers and the weakest link in the chain. Pastoralists are not able to control the exchange value of their livestock because the demand for these commodities are externally set.
As we eye new livestock trading possibilities, we need to negotiate for explicit trading arrangements for pastoralists to avoid local and international cartel capture. Let us go back to the drawing board, facilitate dialogue to revisit current and historical sector issues and the policy bottlenecks.
Livestock producers could be organised into groups that can be connected to opportunities in emerging markets and positioned in a new trading model between entrepreneurs and county governments or the emerging KMC supply chain, reducing perverse information asymmetry and improving pricing.
They can then pursue product branding to tap into the increasing interest in organic products and meat. Branding can enable a shift from an undifferentiated commodity market to a niche one but requires investments in improved traceability and organic certification systems for community groups.
It’s time we went back to the drawing board.
Dr Roba, a researcher, is a specialist in African pastoralism and livestock value chain. [email protected]
