Investing in agriculture to alleviate hunger
2011 Blog Action Day on 16 October – World Food Day – is, naturally, themed around food
Food is a basic human need. Yet for many people across the world, this basic human need is not that easy to come by.
Putting food on the table is a struggle for small scale farmers and pastoralists with little income or natural resources. It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it, that the very people who grow food or rear livestock for food are those that go hungry? Why? Lack of agricultural knowledge and investment, little access to credit, little access to markets, growing competition for land and price volatility.
What is more, where the climate is changing year on year, there are no spare resources to adjust or adapt practices in order to reduce the impacts of droughts, floods and other extreme weather events.
Mothers queue for hours at Mandera District Hospital to get food
I was recently in Mandera, north western Kenya, where I came face-to-face with the terrible reality of drought, and the devastating impact it’s having on families and children.
People hadn’t eaten for days, yet when asked what they needed, not one person said they needed food. In fact, any food aid they received went to their livestock. What they needed was rain so they could grow their crops and feed their livestock.
So it was good to see Practical Action working with agricultural communities to cope with drought by helping to develop drought resistant crops, protect livestock and conserve precious water.
High up in the Andes in Peru, the temperature can drop to as low as -35 degrees centigrade and there is practically no vegetation. Practical Action works with communities to grow food that will survive these harsh conditions.
And in flood prone places like Bangladesh where it’s impossible to grow crops, Practical Action has developed a technology to allow farmers to grow food on flooded land.
We work with entire market systems, often focusing on helping poor farmers and producers to build their abilities to engage with people they do business with and get better deals for themselves and their communities.
Investing in farmers and pastoralists like this ensures not only can they put food on the table but they can also earn more money – working themselves out of poverty.
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Livestock health key to drought survival
Great news – one of our projects to help poor people cope with the drought in East Africa is in the national newspapers!
UK national newspaper journalists came out to Mandera, northern Kenya, to see an emergency drought response programme that we’re running. See my previous blog here:
http://practicalaction.org/blog/east-africa/kenya/emergency-drought-response-programme/
It’s a livestock feeding and vaccination programme we’re managing with funding from the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA).
Their articles were published today. Here is the coverage:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/205936/Starving-families-flee-war-and-drought-in-Somalia-/
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Microfinance empowering drought-hit poor
I’ve never really been interested in finance. Just the very mention of “savings and investment”, “stocks” or “retirement planning” makes my eyes glaze over.
So I surprised myself with the excitement I felt about a Practical Action finance initiative funded by animal welfare charity The Brook.
In fact, it’s the project I am most passionate about in drought-hit Mandera Why? Because it’s a fantastic example of how we’re building the capacity of people to generate their own income from livelihoods; how we’re helping them become self-sufficient so they can avoid having to depend on hand outs to survive.
What it’s about:
Working with the Equity Bank, local authorities and other organisations, we’ve just launched the Equine Savings and Investment Group, a pilot group lending initiative for donkey owners. These people are mainly pastoralist ‘drop outs’ – they’ve lost their livestock and their way of earning a living.
How it works:
Practical Action recommends a group of up to 15 donkey owners to the bank, pays the application fee, interest and insurance. Individuals pay a minimum of one Kenya shilling into a group account. The collateral of the group acts as a security net for the bank so if anyone defaults on loan payments, it can take the money from the group.
The members can then apply for loans to improve their livelihoods. These applications have to be approved – ensuring the money will be used in the best possible way, rather than just to buy non essentials. One example is buying more donkeys and carts which can be hired out to people who can’t afford them.
But that’s not just it. We’re also doing this:
At the same time, Practical Action works with the community to identify and then train people on alternative income generating activities like donkey powered transport for firewood, water and crop produce, or becoming donkey cart artisans and harness makers.
What the donkey owners say:
So far 56 groups have been set up. It’s early days but donkey owners are excited about the difference this initiative could make to their lives.
One of them said: “We’re grateful for the assistance we’ve received in empowering us to strengthen our livelihoods. This provision is a good financial solution to our problems. We can raise our income and our quality of life. We feel that now we have a very bright future.”
If this is successful, it could be replicated all over Kenya. Watch this space!
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A long walk to water
We’ve all read about how Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. But have you ever read about how people in Mandera, north eastern Kenya, can walk a round trip of up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) to fetch water?
For someone who only has to walk a few paces to get clean running water, this is incomprehensible; especially when you consider that these people have to walk this distance in temperatures of up to 40˚C. I almost consider trying it just to see if I can make it and appreciate the suffering that these people have to endure.
But this journey is one fraught with danger. Water is in such short supply that violence regularly breaks out at the few remaining wells – with many innocent women and children wounded or killed.
Practical Action is reducing the trek that people have to make to fetch water by rehabilitating shallow wells dug into seasonal river beds.
I spoke to a woman at one of the rehabilitated shallow wells who said she now only has to walk two kilometres to fetch water and feels much safer. While I was there, I was told by several pastoralists that the trough next to the shallow well gives their livestock easy access to water and as a result, is helping to keep them alive.
Patoralist Adan Ibrahim said: “The rehabilitation of these wells and the building of new wells is crucial to the livestock because they will always have water. This will ensure that they survive the drought until the next rains come.”
It’s clear that amongst the complex solutions we’re introducing to this area, this simple technology is a life-saving answer.
This is why it’s so critical for us to dig more wells and rehabilitate more wells. 90,000 households across Mandera county depend on them.
Find out more about our shallow well work.
No Comments » | Add your commentEmergency drought response programme
Today was an exciting day for us. Journalists from a number of national UK newspapers came to Mandera, northern Kenya, to see an emergency drought response programme that we’re running, with funding from the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA).
We wanted to show them the best way of helping poor people cope with drought, in the hope that they would take this message back to the UK.
This is the situation that we are trying to raise awareness of:
Lots of food aid is arriving to feed the hungry. But poor people in this area are nearly all pastoralists who depend on their livestock to survive. Food aid is needed for their livestock because if they die, pastoralists won’t have a future and they will have to rely on handouts for the rest of their lives.
Part of our emergency drought response programme - feeding livestock to keep them alive
This is what the community in Mandera say:
At a meeting with elders in El Wak, a town in Mandera County, elder Haji Mohamed said: “Everyone who comes here asks if we are hungry, if we humans have enough food. That is important, but for us more important at this time is feeding the last remaining animals that have survived these years of drought.”
Another elder, Aden Kala Dido, added: “When the last animal goes, then it is time to start waiting for the humans to begin dying too.”
This is what we’re doing:
They are grateful for programme we are running in Mandera – supplying 90,000 tons of animal food to feed 50,000 goats and sheep, vaccinating 40,000 livestock against opportunistic diseases and facilitating drought related animal health services.
Vaccinating livestock
At first, prioritising livestock feeding doesn’t seem quite right when people are streaming to feeding centres to find food aid. However, the penny dropped for the journalists when they learned that pastoralists are actually sharing the food they receive from aid agencies and the Kenyan government with their animals, denying themselves and their families of these vital rations.
“The pastoralists would rather die themselves than let their livestock die.”
“That is the measure of how important the animals are to these people,” said Lenkai Ole Tutui, the district commissioner in charge of the area around El Wak. “The pastoralists would rather die themselves than let their livestock die so whatever food they get, they share it with their livestock. Everyone is looking at food aid for humans. It is high time that people realise this and send food for livestock.”
I think this photo (below) on the wall of the Practical Action office in Mandera is a poignant illustration of how the pastoralists feel about these animals and what we need to be doing to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people suffering from the drought in Kenya.
The road to drought and devastation
We’ve travelled by road for 19 hours from Nairobi to Mandera, northern Kenya, where people are suffering from the worst drought seen here in 60 years.
The effects of the drought were evident as we got closer and closer to Mandera – more and more carcasses of animals (sheep, goats, cattle and camels) on the roadside.
The death of these animals is more significant that you’d think, for they are essential to pastoralists who make up 95% of the population in Mandera. These are people whose main source of livelihood is livestock with which they move seasonally in search of fresh pasture and water.
Pastoralists depend on livestock for all their basic needs and any losses undermine their economic and food security.
Healthy camels can fetch a good sum of money at the market. These animals are built to survive in the desert, so I was shocked when we came across one sitting by the side of the road. Too weak to walk through lack of food and water, it’s owners had no option but to leave it to die.
We pass a lorry carrying food relief – for humans. Unfortunately, emergency relief often doesn’t appreciate the importance of saving livestock in emergencies.
But we hope that the national newspaper journalists we are meeting will raise awareness of this issue back home. They are visiting a livestock feeding and vaccination programme we’re running with funding from the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA). The hope is that by feeding the livestock and vaccinating them against common diseases, families can continue to support themselves during and after the drought.
No Comments » | Add your commentDevastation by drought
We travelled to Mandera, and found the 544Km stretch between Garissa and Mandera littered with livestock carcasses on either side. Hyenas and carrion birds have moved in. It is really depressing to see the devastation caused by the ravaging drought throughout the landscape. The remaining stocks that have survived are so emaciated that if it does not rain in the next few days they will be another meal for the carcass eaters.
Conversely, opportunists are on the rampage. Traders are purchasing the living stock at meagre prices. For example, sheep and goats are now being bought for as low as KES 100/= (USD$1) per head. Yet in the towns, a kilo of meat is currently retailing at KES 300/= (USD$3). The thought that traders are buying cattle for as low as KES 5000 (USD$50) per head, leaves one with a lot of sympathy to the livestock keepers of northern Kenya.
The Ministry of Livestock Development livestock off-take initiative (enabling drought stricken communities to dispose off their livestock) had not yielded much fruit. In fact, the government is conceding that it is overwhelmed by the situation. And while this is on, there are no clear plans as to how we shall deal with those who fall out of livestock keeping and pastoralism as a whole.
As an organisation, there is need to think of more proactive ways to deal with the situation. We must provide leadership in ensuring that disaster risk reduction interventions are given the required attention at policy level, while sharing best practices and useful lessons around disaster mitigation.
No Comments » | Add your commentUpdate on drought in Kenya
Key highlights
- Kenya government acknowledges drought is a national disaster
- Malnutrition levels reach new highs in Turkana, Mandera and other northern districts of Kenya
- Government of Kenya waives tax on maize importation to avert shortages and stabilise prices
- Government and humanitarian actors heighten response to drought
- Insecurity in Turkana continues unabated
Practical Action in Eastern Africa is working in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) zone of Kenya to promote the use of technology as a basis for natural resource based livelihoods, promote resilience and reduce vulnerability of the pastoralist communities in Kenya.
Kenya is experiencing a prolonged drought. Lack of rain earlier in the year has caused crops to fail. The humanitarian consequences of the prolonged drought being experienced in most arid and semiarid areas have increased since the onset of what climatologists refer to as La nina. This has greatly reduced water, pasture and food in most areas in northern Kenya. Mandera and Turkana, where we work, have been negatively affected in recent months. Cattle herders are struggling to keep their herds alive.
The current drought can be attributed to poor rains in October through December 2010. The effect of the drought has been compounded by incomplete recovery of pasture following the 2009 drought. According to the results of the Kenya Food Security Steering Group assessment report of May 2011, the situation is getting worse with each passing day. There is a deterioration of drought conditions which have led to rapid depletion of pasture and water for livestock, increased migration of livestock and eroded food security, especially for pastoralists. With drought set to worsen as the arid lands enter a dry spell after the failed rains, access to water and pasture will be extremely stretched – a situation which will only lead to further stresses for livestock. It is widely expected that the food beneficiary population will increase from 3 million people to up to 4 million. For example, Mandera, Rhamu and Elwak did not receive enough rainfall as expected. The spatial distribution was also erratic. The areas have not received rains in the last 90 days.
The weight of the problem is already discernible. The Ministry of Livestock Development has reported livestock deaths in several hard-hit areas. The report indicates that the situation could deteriorate. Many other hundreds of livestock are also reported to have become exceedingly weak, further complicating the lives of their owners.
The government and development partners now acknowledge the urgent need to address both the humanitarian needs and assist the affected populations. It has been announced that the Ministry of Water and Irrigation will get additional funds amounting to KES 600million (GBP 4.4m GBP) so as to effectively respond to current drought. In order to cushion livestock owners from incurring hefty loses, the Government allocated KES 1 billion (GBP 7.4m) to the Ministry of Livestock of which Sh500m (GBP 3.7m)will be used for livestock off-take and the balance to be channelled through the Agricultural Finance Corporation.
It is estimated that the money would supply water, provision of livestock feed supplements, vaccination of animals and buying of stock from the herders and building capacity for fodder production. According to experts, animals are susceptible to disease during this dire time since massive movement of livestock in search of pasture and water and concentration in the few water sources would lead to outbreak and spread of animal diseases. Therefore vaccination and treatment would ensure the animals have a better chance of surviving the dry period. Stakeholders need to provide more water trucking services in the region to facilitate better access for residents and their livestock.
The effects of the prolonged drought have affected other sectors too. According to UNOCHA, Malnutrition mortality rates in northern Kenya have exceeded emergency thresholds. The 2011 Nutrition surveys indicate a deterioration of health in 11 northern districts where global acute malnutrition (GAM) rates are recorded at 24-37 per cent and severe acute malnutrition rated at 3-9 per cent. Food insecurity has deepened in northern districts where drought impacts have worsened in past months. This situation is expected to continue to deteriorate with the continuing drought.
Cross-border insecurity is rife in the larger Karamoja cluster border regions where mobility in search of water and pasture forms a core of pastoral livelihoods during this dry periods. More than 125 people were recorded killed in Kenya in cattle rustling incidents between January and June 2011. Cattle raids have been aggravated in the recent past by the proliferation of small arms, sometimes linked to competition over resources sharing. This is now deeply rooted in clan-based politics and is supported by some communities as a form of wealth acquisition/restocking in times of drought.
The education sector has also been affected. The current drought has led to an influx of students in some schools and a high dropout rate in communities that are migrating.
There is an urgent need for livestock off take (destocking) as a mitigation measure against severe losses as drought impacts continue to ravage the pastoral livelihoods system in the arid lands. An urgent off take will ensure that pastoralists at least salvage capital assets from the sale of the livestock while still alive and possibly contribute to the household food security from the off take initiative.
What is Practical Action doing?
While helping the affected population to cope with the present drought through agencies already working on the situation and reducing its impact, Practical Action is supporting by mobilising resources to ensure that in the communities where we work there is:
- Scaling up destocking for food and commercial livestock off-take in the coming 2-6 weeks when body conditions of the small livestock goats and shoats are expected to still be in good conditions. The affected populations can also be supported to reduce the distances covered in search of water to bearable dimensions, not necessarily by drilling more boreholes but by for example, piping water closer to homes from far away boreholes. Simple technologies for water purification and treatment and energy saving technologies also need to be adopted.
- Disease surveillance and control.
- Encouraging long-term interventions in the livestock sector as a solution to addressing drought impacts. These activities may include work to rehabilitate water sources, installing solar water pumps at strategic boreholes, training for community-based repair technicians for repair of borehole pumps when they break down, supporting the development of a fast moving spare part local enterprise, and promotion of pasture establishment and storage for use in the dry season.
- Since drought is a cyclic phenomenon in this region, Practical Action can help replicate lessons learnt from Peru on disaster mitigation - in Mandera especially, in the area of drought risk mapping, development of community based drought mitigation plans and building capacity for local communities to participate in drought related decision making at the grassroots level.
Lollipops for cows
A locally appropriate, low cost answer to cattle malnutrition …
Cow licking a mineral bloc, Chitwan, Nepal
1. Take 1 kilogram of that red mud that’s at the back of the homestead;
2. Dry it out in the sun for a couple of days and pound into a powder;
3. Roast 10 egg shells (just the shells – eat the contents youself with your family), pound into a powder and add it to the red dirt;
4. Mix this with around 1 kilogram of regular salt, the stuff you can buy at the shop a few doors down;
5. Add 1/2 a kilogram of flour to bind the mixture;
6. Finally pour in some water as required until the mixture holds together and can be shaped into blocks. Shape them into donut shapes (making sure you leave a hole in the middle of the block);
7. Leave to dry for a week in the shade, then another week in the sun until hard;
A local breed cow using a mineral block in Chitwan, Nepal
8. Use the hole in the middle to string the block up in your cow-shed. Make sure that your cow can reach the block at a stretch, but not easily. String up one of these blocks for each of your cows.
That’s how you make a Nepali Khanij Dikka, a mineral block. It’ll cost you around 30 Nepali Rupees (22 – 28 pence) to make a block that weighs 2.5 kilograms. That cost comes from 14 – 16 Rupees for the salt and 13 – 15 Rupees for the flour. Obviously the red mud is free, and you’re probably eating eggs so those shells are a free by-product. Each block will last one cow for about a month.
Your cows will natural lick the mineral block when inclined, taking in iron from the red earth, calcium and phosphorus from the egg shells, and iodine, sodium and chlorine from the salt. These are all essential minerals necessary for the good health of your cows and so that your cows produce a good quantity of milk that is high in fat!
Thanks to Prakash Poudel, Dairy and Livestock Specialist on the Market Access for Smallholder Farmers (MASF) project, for providing all the technical input for this post!
P.S. Read my recent blog about why Practical Action Nepal is working in the dairy sector and what it is doing to help farmers improve the nutrition of their cows so that they can produce milk of appropriate quality and in large enough quantities to attract commercial buyers.
Some 'improved' breed cows in a model cow-shed
Drama to make a Difference: Raising agricultural awareness through theatre in Bangladesh
I like community theatre. Over the past couple of months I’ve seen amateur performances of Amadeus and Lady Windermere’s Fan. The former in particular was great. But what I saw last night was something else!
In the playing field of a rural upper school in the Sirajgunj district of Bangladesh, a troupe put on a drama about good practices in small scale agriculture to a packed out local crowd. By a conservative estimate at least 400 children and adults of all ages, women and men, came from nearby villages to laugh (a lot) and sigh (not cry, although the wedding scene I must admit was quite touching) while learning about how to improve their cattle rearing, vegetable farming, and pond fishing.
It was part of Practical Action Bangladesh’s Making Agriculture and Market Systems Work for Landless, Marginal and Smallholder Farmers project, which is funded by the European Commission. Through the project Practical Action is already helping 15,000 farmers and 300 micro enterprises directly, but in order to reach even greater scale, the team is raising awareness much more widely through the region with activities ranging from agriculture fairs to community-based drama shows like the one I was lucky enough to catch.
It was really something special! My Bangla isn’t up to scratch so I didn’t catch every word (Read: my Bangla doesn’t exist and I didn’t understand a word) but the slapstick comedy, hilarious characters, touching story, and important messages were easy to see. The show had everything: music and dance, advice about cattle vaccinations, stick-on beards, tips on how much and when to fertilise your vegetable crop, a crazy old match-maker, how many fry (baby fish) to put in your pond cage, over-sized sun-glasses…
I was particularly pleased to see lots of women standing together enjoying the show. Often kept away from public gatherings by cultural norms, women make up the majority of livestock carers in Bangladesh. So getting these messages to them is particularly important.
The evening went down a storm. And that’s a great sign that people will talk about it in weeks and months to come, remember and share its lessons with others.
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