The dying fields of Isinya: 290,000 cattle drop dead as drought batters Kajiado County

The Ministry of Agriculture has released Ksh.350 million to enable farmers sell their dying livestock to the Kenya Meat Commission as part of mitigation against the ongoing drought.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi announced the new intervention on Tuesday as he visited Kajiado County, one of the hardest hit by the drought that has seen over 290,000 head of cattle die and over one million others at risk of death by starvation.

The rush to dispose livestock on the verge of death in Kajiado County is real. Herders bring their emaciated animals to the Isinya market in the hope that someone will offer them a good price but the situation at the market all but dashes their hopes.

Buyers are few and far apart, what is in plenty though is the physical representation of the impact of four failed rain seasons. On the edge of the Isinya livestock market, strewn for as far as the eye can see, carcasses of cows, goats and sheep that didn't make it past market day. This is the third batch of such losses suffered at the market since August this year.

When we visited the area at midday, one cow appeared to be grasping at the very last embers of life, the owners tell us, the animal had no chance of surviving, and the cost of taking it back home was not worth it, so it joined the dead, waiting it's turn. We returned two hours later, and true to prediction it had breathed it's last.

The losses there are devastating for a community that solely depends on livestock for just about everything.

“Tunazidi kupoteza banki ya maasai, mifugo ikifariki sisi tunazidi kuumia,” says a farmer.

Jackson Supon is a livestock farmer and trader at the nearby slaughter house. He has moved his herd from his rural home to this market centre in the midst of the biting drought.

He tells us the cost of keeping his herd alive in the village wasn't sustainable any more. He had to spend about Ksh.3,000 every day to transport the equally costly hay to the dying animals.

According to Jackson Supon, a livestock owner, three months ago, he had 200 head of cattle, now only 40 remain, their remains forming part of this mount of carcases in what has been christened the valley of death in Isinya market.

But while the herders are counting losses, middlemen are raking in profits, buying the livestock at throw away prices by the truck loads, to resell at huge profit margins elsewhere, the ones that don't get bought, will waste away in the valley of death.

In Kajiado County alone, the national drought management authority estimates that close to 300,000 cattle have died due to the drought, and thousands more are facing the same fate. Herders are counting losses running into billions of shilllings.

In the meantime, the National and County Governments are putting in place mitigating measures including availing Ksh.350 million to the Kenya Meat Commission to facilitate the livestock offtake programme that will help herders get seed money to restock their herds once the rains come, and grass grows again. But beyond the stop gap measure, the government wants the community to look beyond sole dependency on livestock keeping.