Livestock revolution: exploiting the potential
of Kenya’s ASALs
Carlos Seré
Director General, ILRI
2nd Kenyan National Agricultural Sector Conference November 9-12, 2008

Key messages
 1. ASAL development can be improved significantly
with existing knowledge and experience
 2. ASAL development is mainly an investment and
management challenge
 3. Rapidly evolving context offers many new
opportunities
e.g ICTs, finance, insurance, early warning
systems, trade in ecosystem services

Presentation Overview
 1. Context
 2. The Livestock Revolution
 3. ASAL development challenges
 4. Interventions: What not to do
 5. Interventions: What to do
 6. Managing the ASALs
 7. Conclusions

1.Context

Importance of the ASALs in East
Africa
 Land area = 1.5m sq km
 Population = 15 million people
 Cattle (TLUs) = 13 million
 Sheep (TLUs) = 2 milion
 Goats (TLUs) = 2 million

2. The Livestock Revolution

Dynamic livestock sector
 Livestock fastest growing part of
the agricultural sector, largely driven
by the Livestock Revolution in
emerging economies.
 Need to double livestock
production in developing world
by 2020 to meet rising demand
for livestock products.
 Doubling livestock production puts
pressure on natural resources:
water, land, biodiversity.

Livestock sector trends
 A ‘supermarket revolution’ is
setting higher standards for
food quality and safety.
 Market chains are lengthening,
making it more difficult for
small-scale producers to
participate in markets.

Livestock research enables
3 pathways out of poverty
 Securing assets of the
poor to reduce vulnerability
 Increasing productivity
to improve livelihoods
 Expanding markets
to increase incomes

3. Development challenges of the
ASALs

3. ASALs Development
challenges
Key challenge:
 Reduce poverty and vulnerability, provide
livelihood options:
 constraint of low population density
 limited success of interventions to increase
primary productivity
 degradation of natural resources
 conflict in managing common resources
 weak links to national economy
 low priority for public investment

4. Interventions: What not to do

Interventions: What not to do (1)
Slaughterhouses
 Don’t invest public finds into export slaughter houses
in remote areas, because:
Offals cannot be marketed efficiently
Quality of local animals not export grade
Transportation risky and expensive for
refrigerated products
Therefore, let private risk capital explore
opportunities


Interventions: What not to do (2)
 Disease free zones
Don’t try to establish disease free zones, because:
Difficult to enforce at present
Low intensity of production makes it uneconomic
High cost option
Therefore, enforce present regulatory framework
and explore new options such as commoditization
of trade


Interventions: What not to do (3)
Stop cross border trade
 Don’t hinder livestock trade with neighbouring
countries, because:
Important risk management option for pastoralists
 Impossible to stop
Therefore, seek to facilitate formal trade across
borders


Interventions: What not to do (4)
Over-emphasize international trade
 Don’t overly focus development efforts on
international trade in livestock and livestock
products, because:
 Kenya’s domestic market is rapidly growing
 Kenya is a net importer of beef
 SPS constraints important limitation
Therefore, emphasise improved functioning of
national and regional markets and consider
international exports as an additional outlet

5. Interventions: What to do

Interventions: What to do (1)
Develop markets
 Develop domestic markets is the top priority
intervention.
 Specific actions include:
 Improve physical market places, holding grounds,
loading ramps, etc
 Improve price information
 Use KMC strategically to provide a floor to the
market
 Provide livestock finishing infra-structure in
higher potential areas e.g ADC ranches

Interventions: What to do (2)
Finance
 Provide a conducive environment for commercial
and NGO financing institutions to operate
 Credit is critical for both producers and traders
 Specific actions include:
 Learn lessons from Equity Bank and Mpesa
experiences


Interventions: What to do (3)
Road and Rail infrastructure
 Transport is critical for livestock markets and brader
development, but costly
 Specific actions include:
 Undertake cost benefit analyses of alternative
options to improve transport routes and compare
road vs rail


Interventions: What to do (4)
Water investments
 Water points are critical for the utilization of
rangelands and for human livelihoods generally
 Specific actions include:
 Making careful assessments of location of water
points
 Considering environmental impacts of livestock
use of water points
 Prevent livestock contamination of water points
Engage local communities in agreeing appropriate
stocking rates in conjunctions with new water points

Interventions: What to do (5)
Veterinary services
 Focus on key diseases (e.g. FMD, RVF, CBPP,
PPR, Rinderpest)
 Specific actions include:
 Enhance capacity to monitor and respond to
health conditions
 Legalise community animal health workers
 Ensure appropriate levels of vaccine production
and effective deployment approaches

Interventions: What to do (6)
Vulnerability and risk
 Pastoralists vulnerability critical for livelihoods and
for increasing production
 Specific actions include:
 Early warning systems for drought and diseases
e.g Rift Valley Fever
 Combining short term relief programs with
development interventions (productive safety nets)
 Explore potential to provide innovative insurance
mechanisms for pastoralists

Interventions: What to do (7)
Diversification of livelihoods
 Evolving societal demands create new livelihood
opportunities in the ASALs
 Specific options include:
 Provision of environmental services, such as
wildlife conservation, carbon sequestration, water
management
 New feeds, such as Prosopis pods
 New enterprises, such as eco-tourism, bee
keeping, oasis agriculture
 Off farm income and remittances

Interventions: What to do (8)
ICTs
 Exploit the unique power of ICTs to overcome the
“tyranny of distance”
 Specific options include:
 Cell phone, email, www web access for sharing
price information, obtaining technical advice, etc
 E government
 Distance education
 Banking/insurance services

Interventions: What to do (9)
Security
 Government has a unique role to play in protecting
communities and preserving law and order
 Specific actions include:
Developing effective approaches for the
traceability of livestock

6. Managing the ASALs

Managing the ASALs
Achieving the potential of the ASALs requires highly
integrated management approaches. Key elements
include:
1. Effective knowledge management
2. Smart targeting for geography, gender,
3. Active community participation
4. Dynamic cross sectoral interventions
5. Quick learning culture to scale out successful

7. Conclusions

Conclusions
1. ASAL development can be improved
significantly with existing knowledge and
experience
2. ASAL development is mainly an investment and
management challenge
3. Rapidly evolving context offers many new
opportunities e.g ICTs, finance, insurance, early
warning systems, trade in ecosystem services,
service delivery through ppts

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