Livestock prices have dropped by about 70 per cent in drought-stricken districts. A cow is selling for about Sh4,000 in these areas from Sh13,000.

A joint report by the government, World Food Programme, USAid and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network links the decline to lack of water and pasture.

The Kenya Food Security Report said 15 per cent of animals had died in Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit, Moyale, eastern Samburu and northern Isiolo.

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KENYA – The East African Dairy Development project which is implemented by Heifer International in partnership with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), TechnoServe, the World Agroforestry Centre and the African Breeders Service Total Cattle Management, has been working with farmers in east Africa since January 2008.

In the past two years, the project has focused on improving the dairy incomes of over 170,000 dairy farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. In Kenya, interventions to improve dairy production in Kenya’s Rift Valley province are transforming the lives of farmers like Florence Chepkirui.

Florence is a resident of Saoset village of Bomet district in Kenya’s south Rift Valley region. The district has a wonderful climate and beautiful farms on rolling hills and valleys. Her two-acre farm supports subsistence crop farming, two dairy cows and fodder that the cows feed on. Florence is one of many smallholder farmers in Saoset and despite her being blind, she has succeeded in earning a living from dairy farming.

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Gitarama — Clement Bizimungu, a widow and carer for three orphaned children, beamed broadly after receiving a heifer from the Bureau Social De Gitarama in Kabacuzi sector, where a cattle restocking is under way.

“This is the happiest day of my life; I will do whatever it takes to rear this cow well; most importantly, it may soon start giving me milk,” she told IRIN.

Bizimungu, an ethnic Tutsi, lost her husband and three children during the genocide. Like most people in the area, Bizimungu says it has been hard to come to terms with life after 1994, which in addition to leaving many orphans and widows, also led to the massive slaughtering of cattle, a hitherto vital economic asset and source of protein, in a country where “close to half of all children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition”, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

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Exporters of live animals to Mauritius are preparing to resume the business following the recent rainfall that has improved pasture in Coast province.

The growing demand for live Kenyan animals in Mauritius was interrupted by the recent drought that affected many parts in the country, leading traders to suspend exports since they could not get the animals of the required weight.

“With the current rainfall in many parts of the province, there is sufficient pasture and we are optimistic that the animals will attain the required weight for export,” Mohammed Mursal of Global Livestock Traders said.

“We shall resume in the next one or two months,” Mursal, who works for the only company contracted by the Mauritius government to source and export animals, added.

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GHANA – The International Organisation of Animal Health has conferred on Ghana the status of a rinderpest-free country, following the total eradication of the disease in 2005.

A Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Alfred Sugri-Tia, who disclosed this in Tamale, has therefore commended veterinary doctors in the country for their untiring efforts which ensured the eradication of rinderpest, a deadly and highly contagious cattle disease. He made the commendation at the opening of the 35th Annual General Meeting of the Ghana Veterinary Medical Association in Tamale.

The Deputy Minister hoped with the establishment of two new veterinary schools at the University of Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, more veterinary professionals would soon be trained to contribute their quota towards animal health and production in the country.