A paradox of rising meat demand and prices amid weakening feed and fodder systems
Sponsored by AU-IBAR

The subject of meat and its rising demand was brought to the fore by the Kenya Meat Expo 2024, the third episode of a growing initiative of Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, in collaboration with the Nation Media Group and development partners.
Key among the discussions were the rapidly rising consumption of meat and meat products, as Kenya’s urban populations swell and the middle class expands.
Paradoxically, there is a parallel narrative of rising meat prices, further emphasising that meat, for most Kenyans, remains a highly desirable but expensive commodity.
Feeding cost in livestock production constitutes over 70 percent of the total production cost. The recent periods of drought, the unprecedented floods, and the disruptions of global feed supply chains have raised serious reflections on whether Kenya’s feed and fodder industry can sustainably support the livestock sector.
The unmet demand for meat in Kenya is estimated at 398,232 metric tons annually (ILRI, 2019). Eighty percent of the meat consumed in the country is produced by the pastoral communities in the arid and semi-arid (ASAL) areas, which are home to 36 percent of the countries’ population. Livestock production is the most significant economic activity among the pastoral communities, constituting up to 95 percent of their household income.
According to a report presented by the President’s Economic Transformation Secretariat (PETS) showing the sources of livestock for meat by counties, Turkana, Garissa and Mandera were the leading sources at 16.8 percent, 9.63 percent, and 5.92 percent respectively, accounting for a third of the total volume of livestock sourced for slaughter. Yet in a worrying coincidence, Mandera and Turkana were top among the counties that registered the highest numbers in livestock deaths during the 2021-2022 drought. Additionally, they rank top on the list of the Food Poverty Incidence level at 65 percent and 63.4 percent respectively. This raises an acute concern as to why the most significant sources of meat in Kenya have the weakest livestock feeding systems and are the most vulnerable to drought and related climatic externalities.
On one hand, there is a growing demand for meat and meat products, with some studies projecting over 170 percent growth in demand in the next two decades, while on the other hand is an escalating level of vulnerability as witnessed in the ASALs.
According to the analysis presented by PETS, beef contributes 74 percent of all the meat consumed, with mutton and chevon having a market share of four percent and 22 percent respectively. Meat from ruminant livestock accounts for 75 percent of all meat consumed (excluding fish), with poultry and pork accounting for the remaining 25 percent (FAO, 2019).
Considering the significance of feeding cost in the livestock production economics, the rising consumption pattern should be a pointer to the country’s priority action if the economic targets across the meat supply chain are to be met and sustained. Even more worrying is the long-term negative consequences of unmet nutritional targets, which are evidenced by malnutrition and stunting especially in children. Kenya’s per capita consumption of meat falls 25 percent below the recommendation of World Health Organization of 20kg.
These gaps underscore the huge opportunity to address upstream livestock feeding systems that can be achieved through deploying Kenya’s strengths, including a robust private sector, a vibrant financial sector counting the mobile money technologies, and a skilled workforce.
End to end contracting in the feed and fodder supply chain needs to be embraced as a best practice, and mainstreaming secondary beef production in the place of emergency off-take approaches, will enhance confidence and de-risk pastoral and other production systems. This, in effect, will stabilise downstream processing and marketing, and with increased efficiency, can better and optimise meat prices, making meat more affordable for a majority of the population.
The winning formula globally for achieving human food and nutrition security is that 60 percent of all the grain produced is used as animal feed, and two-thirds of all land resources are managed for livestock production. Unless investments are made towards these thresholds, the country remains exposed to underperformance of the livestock sector, which manifests in perennial incapacity to address food and nutrition security, vulnerability and instability of livestock systems with a cyclic loss of youth employment, and higher meat prices as some of the negative consequences.
The annual Kenya Meat Expo is an opportunity to reflect, re-strategise and resolve to build a robust livestock sector by fixing the feed and fodder industry first due to its strategic importance. This will call for a coordinated and sustained action from multiple actors aimed at transitioning the sector into an economic sector.
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David Maina Thuita is a Feed and Fodder Business Development Expert, and Dr Sarah Ashanut Ossiya is the Team Leader, Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems Project, African Union – InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR)