Falling production threatens to dampen Kenya’s growing appetite for milk and meat

That demand for livestock products is strong and growing in Kenya is not in doubt. The country’s meat consumption per capita is estimated at 13.6 kilogrammes per person per annum while that of milk stands at 110 litres per person every year.

Nairobi and Mombasa residents are particularly big consumers of meat, with per capita consumption of between 15 kilogrammes and 19 kilogrammes annually, according to a study by agricultural think-tank Tegemeo Institute.

The capital and the coastal city account for nearly a fifth or 17 per cent of total meat consumed in Kenya, the research says.

Milk uptake is projected to double to 220 litres per person per year in East Africa’s largest economy, says the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB), the industry regulator.

However, despite the growing appetite for meat and milk, Kenya’s livestock industry is faced with a myriad of challenges that have hamstrung the sector’s growth.

Agriculture contributes 25.9 per cent to Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 60 per cent of total employment.

Livestock makes up 40 per cent of the agricultural total output, yet resource allocation to the subsector remains very low by both the national and county governments.

“Counties in ASAL (arid and semi-arid lands) areas where livestock is the mainstay of the economy, are on the spot for making tiny budgetary allocations to the livestock sector with the figure being as low as 2 per cent in some cases,” said Mr Francis Wanyoike, a livestock researcher.

Furthermore, 14 counties with a landmass equivalent to about 80 per cent of Kenya is classified as arid and semi-arid lands – hence totally dependent on livestock farming.

Kenya Markets Trust (KMT), a non-governmental organisation, says the livestock sector is dogged by numerous challenges which need to be urgently addressed.

“There is no livestock policy. It is yet to be passed,” said Mr Ali Hassan Mohamed, director in charge of livestock at KMT.

The existing national livestock development framework was developed in 1980, and experts argue that it has become obsolete and urgently needs to be reviewed.

A new national livestock policy published in November 2008 is yet to be enacted to date.

The other challenge is most Kenyan communities have traditionally kept livestock for subsistence, prestige, and as a form of insurance against drought. This had led to Kenya being a meat deficit country despite having a huge stock of livestock.

“There is little or no value addition. We only slaughter and sell carcass,” said Mr Mohamed. More than half or 54 per cent of meat in Kenya is sold in open air markets, 11 per cent in formal butcheries, with supermarkets as well as hotels and restaurants accounting for three per cent each, according to a 2014 IDEV study.

However, 98 per cent of this meat is of poor quality and technically referred to as ‘hot meat’, with KMT calling for a shift to high quality ‘cold meat’ – which is chilled and cured.

Kenya’s strategic geographical position would make Nairobi a prime exporter of livestock products to Africa and the lucrative Middle East and gulf economies such as United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Middle East is a prime market for small stock products – lamb, mutton and goat meat - while corned beef is more popular in the African markets as well as Saudi Arabia, according to the troubled Kenya Meat Commission.

The loss-making State-owned meat processor plans to lay off 150 employees in a new turnaround strategy aimed at increasing efficiency and regaining the prized export market.

KMC processes 5,000 cases of corned beef per month despite having the capacity to process 20,000 cases.

The total value of marketed livestock and related products in Kenya grew by a marginal 1.3 per cent to Sh99.2 billion in 2015 according to the latest Economic Survey.

Kenya exported 200,000 head of cattle in 2014, which is lower than the 4.5 million heads Somalia shipped overseas and Ethiopia’s 1.9 million cattle, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

In the dairy sector, informal players who sell raw milk account for 88.8 per cent of the milk market, according to the Competition Authority of Kenya.

This means that dairy processors only take in 10 per cent of milk from farmers.

The dairy sector regulator has warned that consumption of raw milk from informal markets poses safety concerns because some traders are alleged to engage in adulteration and contamination of the products.

KMT says that pastoralists only sell about 14 per cent of their livestock and argue that if this doubled to 30 per cent, the country’s deficit would be cured and grow their earnings.

Players in the livestock industry have also decried lack of updated statistics on the sector. For example, policy planners and investors have to wait for the 10-year cyclic national population census to get data on the industry.

Kenya had 3.3 million exotic cattle and another 14.1 million indigenous cattle breeds such as Zebu, and Boran, according to findings of the 2009 Population & Housing Census.

The number of sheep was at 17 million heads, 27.7 million goats, 2.9 million camels, 1.8 million donkeys, and 334,689 pigs – most of which were native breeds such as Galla goats, red Maasai sheep, black head Somali sheep, one hump camel.

Other findings were that Kenyan households reared 25.7 million indigenous chicken, 6.07 million commercial chicken and 1.8 million bee hives.

Frequent and severe droughts caused by climate change have been a big blow to livestock farmers especially in pastoral areas.

The 2008-2011 droughts saw Kenya incur losses and damages in the livestock sector amounting to $12.1 billion, according to a post disaster needs assessment report by the African Development Bank.

This experience highlighted the need for livestock insurance protecting pastoralists from drought related loss of animals.

The Kenyan livestock market also suffers production inefficiencies that result in lower yields. The inadequacies also make Kenyan meat and milk more expensive.