For the first time in history, Kenya counts all its animals on both land and water to help with its conservation and tourism plans
MARSEILLE, France, (PAMACC News) – The Kenya Minister of Tourism and Wildlife, Hon. Najib Balala, today officially released the report for the country's first-ever national wildlife census.
Themed ‘Count to conserve’, the census conducted between May- July 2021 counted over 30 species of mammals, birds and marine species in various ecosystems, covering nearly 59 percent of Kenya's land mass.
According to the report, Kenya has a total of 36,280 elephants, a 12-percent jump from the figures recorded in 2014, when poaching activity was at its highest.
Speaking during a press briefing at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, Hon. Balala said: “This national census is the first wildlife survey of its kind and scope in Kenya. It is fully financed by the Kenyan government. Obtaining this level of information allows for better policy, planning and assessment of areas that require focus in our interventions to maintain or improve our national conservation efforts"
Kenya in East Africa is home to vulnerable and endangered species that include lions, elephants, giraffes and rhinos. It is also a transit route for migratory whales, dolphins and endangered turtles. In March 2021, The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that poaching and habitat destruction, particularly due to land conversion for agriculture, was devastating elephant numbers across Africa.
The survey counted 1,739 rhinos, 897 critically endangered black rhinos and 840 southern white rhinos, and said the tourist magnet Maasai Mara National Reserve was home to nearly 40,000 wildebeest.
“The results of the census report could greatly improve Kenya’s conservation efforts for future generations. Kenya, like several of its African peers, is trying to strike a balance between protecting its wildlife while managing the dangers they pose when they raid human settlements in search of food and water.” said Kenya Wildlife Service Director General Brigadier (Rtd) John Waweru
Congratulating Kenya for this great milestone, IUCN Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Luther Anukur said: “IUCN is honored to have Kenya and other Africa State Members participate at the World Conservation Congress in Marseille. This forum allows for government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business, and academia to share experiences and explore opportunities for collaboration. Kenya’s example is one that will inform policy and action towards wildlife conservation. It is an example that many countries in Africa can learn from.”
Kenya is committed to developing innovative mechanisms for sustainable conservation, identifying conservation hotspots and developing strategies to rally public support and partnerships to grow wildlife numbers. KWS invites partners to work with it in developing strategies to increase the numbers of the endangered and threatened species.
Click the link to download the report here cl: https://bit.ly/WildlifeCensusReport
For the first time in history, Kenya counts all its animals on both land and water to help with its conservation and tourism plans
MARSEILLE, France, (PAMACC News) – The Kenya Minister of Tourism and Wildlife, Hon. Najib Balala, today officially released the report for the country's first-ever national wildlife census.
Themed ‘Count to conserve’, the census conducted between May- July 2021 counted over 30 species of mammals, birds and marine species in various ecosystems, covering nearly 59 percent of Kenya's land mass.
According to the report, Kenya has a total of 36,280 elephants, a 12-percent jump from the figures recorded in 2014, when poaching activity was at its highest.
Speaking during a press briefing at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, Hon. Balala said: “This national census is the first wildlife survey of its kind and scope in Kenya. It is fully financed by the Kenyan government. Obtaining this level of information allows for better policy, planning and assessment of areas that require focus in our interventions to maintain or improve our national conservation efforts"
Kenya in East Africa is home to vulnerable and endangered species that include lions, elephants, giraffes and rhinos. It is also a transit route for migratory whales, dolphins and endangered turtles. In March 2021, The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that poaching and habitat destruction, particularly due to land conversion for agriculture, was devastating elephant numbers across Africa.
The survey counted 1,739 rhinos, 897 critically endangered black rhinos and 840 southern white rhinos, and said the tourist magnet Maasai Mara National Reserve was home to nearly 40,000 wildebeest.
“The results of the census report could greatly improve Kenya’s conservation efforts for future generations. Kenya, like several of its African peers, is trying to strike a balance between protecting its wildlife while managing the dangers they pose when they raid human settlements in search of food and water.” said Kenya Wildlife Service Director General Brigadier (Rtd) John Waweru
Congratulating Kenya for this great milestone, IUCN Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Luther Anukur said: “IUCN is honored to have Kenya and other Africa State Members participate at the World Conservation Congress in Marseille. This forum allows for government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business, and academia to share experiences and explore opportunities for collaboration. Kenya’s example is one that will inform policy and action towards wildlife conservation. It is an example that many countries in Africa can learn from.”
Kenya is committed to developing innovative mechanisms for sustainable conservation, identifying conservation hotspots and developing strategies to rally public support and partnerships to grow wildlife numbers. KWS invites partners to work with it in developing strategies to increase the numbers of the endangered and threatened species.
Click the link to download the report here cl: https://bit.ly/WildlifeCensusReport
MAKUENI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Justus Kimeu, a resident of Kithiani village in the heart of Makueni County has demonstrated to his villagers that by using innovative agronomy practices, the little rainfall in the semi arid county can be sufficient to produce sufficient yields of maize and other crops.
Kimeu is one of the farmers who have embraced the Regenerative Agriculture (RA) technique, which is being piloted in the county by AGRA, the Cereal Growers Association (CGA) among other partners.
RA is a dynamic and holistic way of farming that involves all the principals of permaculture and organic farming techniques, such as minimum tillage, use of cover crops, crop rotation, terracing to reduce soil erosion, heavy mulching to keep the soils moist, use of basins to preserve water and use of compost manure to give the topsoil a texture of virgin fertile arable land.
According to Dr Agnes Kalibata – AGRA President, putting nature at the heart of agriculture and land management can unlock huge benefits for people, health and the environment.
“Productive and regenerative agricultural systems that combine local, indigenous and traditional knowledge and techniques such as crop rotation and tree planting with advanced farming technologies like drip irrigation and seed selection can increase yields, reduce input requirements, boost transparency, and improve the incomes and livelihoods of smallholder farmers,” said the AGRA President.
“The RA system is actually returning the topsoil back to its original form,” said Michael Mutua, an Associate Program Officer in charge of Regenerative Agriculture at AGRA.
With a dismal rainfall of 250mm to 400mm per annum, Kimeu’s one and a half acre piece of land stands out in the entire village. The deep green maize crop with two to three cobs per stem is a rare spectacle in this rainfall scarce. Under normal circumstances, such a crop can only be found in Western Kenya and the Rift Valley regions which receive more than 1250mm per annum.
“When I decided to implement this technique, my farm was bare without much vegetation. So I started by making terraces and after it rained, different weeds sprouted. Together with my family members we uprooted all the weeds and left them on the farm to dry and decompose before making small basins in which we were going to plant the crop,” explained the farmer.
The basins were then filled with organic manure and some topsoil. And when it rained for the second time, hybrid and drought tolerant maize variety seeds were planted inside the moist basins, and any weed that sprouted was manually uprooted and left to rot on the farm.
“We try as much as possible to avoid tillage or any form of disturbing the soil for it to regenerate naturally to its original form,” he said noting that he also avoided use of convectional fertilizers on the farm.
According to AGRA’s Mutua, basins filled with manure can conserve soil moisture for a very long time. As well, compost manure releases soil nutrients slowly, thus keeps the soil fertile for a few seasons unlike the convectional fertilizers which must be used in every planting season.
RA farming system is currently being piloted among smallholder farmers in Makueni and Embu Counties before it is rolled out to other parts of the country and even beyond Kenya.
MAKHANDA, South Africa (PAMACC News) - A comparative study exploring the challenges farmers face in two cattle-farming provinces in South Africa and Kenya shows that trader or broker market control, prevalent in Kenya, should be avoided in South Africa as market access for farmers is improved.
It further identifies the Meat Naturally Initiative (MNI) in the Eastern Cape as a successful case study that, with proper co-ordination agricultural national extension office, could be replicated in both countries to tackle these challenges and increase the access and participation of small-scale farmers in beef markets.
The study, conducted by Professor Cyril Nhlanhla Mbatha, director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University, identifies poor production methods and limited market access as critical challenge clusters that prevent small African farmers in both countries from developing. In cattle farming in particular, poor grazing practices and a lack of vaccination produce poor quality animals. Limited information, poor infrastructure and cultural issues are some of the factors leading to low participation levels of these farmers in livestock markets.
The study compares how some of the common challenges in cattle production and market access have, to varying degrees, been overcome in both countries. Mbatha says that a higher number of rural South African farmers remain excluded from different parts of the value chains of formal beef markets compared to Kenya, and even though they own large herds of cattle, their contribution to the country’s demand for beef remains marginal. “Rural South African small farmers are generally faced with high production and marketing challenges, which prevent them from developing into successful commercial farmers. In terms of business operations, South African small communal farmers lack many of the prerequisite elements that make for innovative competitive markets. Many South African small farmers are still operating within mainly traditional systems with respect to livestock farming.”
Mbatha says challenges in managing livestock and in improving businesses also stem from the fact that there are many more farmers who own smaller numbers of herds, rather than fewer farmers owning bigger herds. “In limited capacities of communal grazing areas this would lead to conflicts among livestock owners on land management issues. This has a direct negative impact on the health and number of Large Stock Units raised per hectare of land. It also impacts markets, as buyers need to search for good quality product.”
Most studies agree that transaction cost issues are core to most challenges faced by small livestock farmers. “Costs of transporting stock to and from markets are a barrier. Ultimately these costs force farmers to adversely select themselves out of formal markets, which leaves them with limited prospects, says Mbatha. “This gap is a clear opportunity for the agricultural extension office to coordinate these information flows.”
Mbatha says that while Kenyan small rural farmers face similar production challenges as those faced by their SA counterparts, they are more advanced in their level of participation in formal markets. However, the farmers’ lack of resources including infrastructure to transport animals to markets, has allowed an emergence of powerful traders who control markets to the detriment of poorly resourced farmers. “The Kenyan beef value chains are dominated by brokers, traders and butchers. There are persistent reports of high levels of collusion by fewer brokers, especially in the marketing stages of livestock.”
Mbatha says that even though the market domination by brokers is higher in Kenya compared to SA, Kenyan farmers are still better off. “In SA small farmers are almost completely excluded in the marketing stages of red meat, where big suppliers dominate the market. As the small farmer markets develop, it should be anticipated that brokers would emerge to occupy many spaces where obvious profits can be made and market issues like those observed in Kenya may develop, where market powers and prices are skewed against producers. Extension offices in SA must already develop strategies for bypassing any potential dominance of markets by traders to the abuse of farmers through prices in different regions of the country.”
The study identifies a successful case study in developing small African farmers that could be replicated across South Africa. The Meat Naturally Initiative (MNI) in the Eastern Cape Province applies a holistic model through which many of the documented challenges in livestock farming for both countries could be reduced, or avoided. “This project has a holistic environmental approach to rural development, with rangeland restoration as one of its objectives. This project organised livestock auction markets for rural small farmers as one of its initiatives to incentivise farmers to participate in environmental protection efforts. Put simply, stakeholders work with traditional leaders to mobilise community members to restore and protect their ecological capital. The model rewards community members with economic incentives aimed at reducing poverty and improving their livelihoods, through participation in livestock-based enterprises.”
Mbatha says that while the MNI model seems sustainable if implemented as intended, only a small proportion of farmers currently benefit. Many parts of the project and its approach to development need to be emulated for the benefits of more SA small farmers in other rural regions, a process that could be co-ordinated through the national agricultural extension office. Mandated to assist small farmers, it holds the required national footprint and shares many of the developmental objectives of the project to promote the lessons across the country.
“If the useful lessons from the model are not deliberately spread across the country, as small farmer markets develop on their own, many of the bad structural elements of such markets may creep in. The Kenyan study illustrates well what some of these elements could be with respect to potentially rising farmer abuses by traders or brokers.”
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Prof Cyril Nhlanhla Mbatha is the director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University, a dynamic African hub of pioneering research that is opening gateways for community-rooted knowledge to be incorporated in policy and practice aimed at improving the natural environment and quality of human life. Former acting Dean and CEO of the Unisa School of Business Leadership and the first Director of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), Prof Mbatha has been a senior research consultant on topics including Public Finances Management, Labour Markets & Further Education and Training, International and Regional Trade Integration for government departments and research councils in South Africa and international donor organisations like the UNDP in Botswana and the World Trade Organisation.
