Dateline ACT

Kenya 0106

Kenyan farmer: ‘I have never seen anything like this before’

By Caroline Waterman, ACT International

Kajiado, southern Kenya, March 10, 2006--Dead animals lie rotting in the fields, the farms, the markets and along the roads. The cattle farmers of Kajiado in southern Kenya have lost everything to drought.

Moses Ole Yiare is one of many farmers whose livelihood has gone. His farmyard lies littered with dead cows, goats and sheep.

All of the neighboring farmers left with their cattle to look for better land for grazing earlier this year. Moses is not sure if they will have fared any better than him.

Moses was not a poor farmer. He used to own 230 cattle and 400 goats and sheep. He paid for all of his children to go through school and supported his two daughters through university.

Now he does not know how many cows he has lost. He says he is too afraid to count.

“In the past, there were droughts that would affect my sheep but not my cows or my cows but not my sheep – but this drought has killed everything,” he explains. “This is historic – I have never seen anything like this before.”

Farther south, toward the Tanzanian border, hundreds of Maasai herdsmen have also lost most, if not all, of their cattle. They have no income because they have no cows or milk to sell. Now they are chopping down trees to make charcoal to sell along the roadsides.

Even though the rains have come in some parts of Kenya, for most Maasai it is too late. They have already lost everything.

Pastoralist communities, such as the Maasai, are among the poorest in Kenya. A lack of investment in water, roads, education and health has left these communities with very little to protect them from the devastating effects of drought.

Members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in Kenya are responding to the drought. ACT issued an appeal for US$2.4 million to its members around the world on February 2 to fund the responses of five of these members. The ACT members’ work includes addressing the immediate food and water needs of the most-affected communities, distributing food, bringing water in by tanks for human and livestock consumption, and drilling boreholes.

This work is vital if farmers like Moses and the hundreds of other farmers who have lost their livelihoods across Kenya are going to have anyway to recover from the current crisis they face.

Caroline Waterman is communications officer for U.K.-based Christian Aid, a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.