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.
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.
