GRIFTU, Kenya (IRIN) - If the Pastoralist Association of Griftu had a wish list, it would be a long one. A livestock dip, which had been constructed by the government, fell into disrepair long ago and has not been fixed. Pastoralists are short of drugs to treat their goats and cattle. Roads for taking their livestock to the markets are in poor shape, and transport is costly. The only abattoirs available are located hundreds of kilometres away in Nairobi, and operate as a cartel, which makes it difficult for the pastoralists to register a substantial profit. There is virtually no access to outside markets for their beef.

"Our livelihood depends on livestock. We tried to form this association, but despite our efforts, we have not been able to achieve much," said Abdullahi Mohamed, the chairman of the pastoralist association, which was formed in 1995 to improve the welfare of pastoralists in the area.

Pastoralists and those who work with them say the Kenyan government has failed to implement an effective livestock marketing policy to offset difficulties pastoralists encounter while trying to maintain their livelihoods in the midst of problems that include drought, conflict and disease.

"There has been food aid, support to schools, credit schemes for women, but there is not much impact really, because it is not addressing the root problem, which is marketing livestock," said Daud Guliye, the Wajir District livestock production officer for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In its United Nations-sponsored report, "Pastoralism and Policy in the Horn of Africa", the UK-based Institute of Development Studies (IDS) attributed poor livestock marketing in Kenya to a number of factors. Although pastoralists occupy two-thirds of Kenyan land, they receive little of the country's investment in infrastructure and services, the report said. Quarantine laws are antiquated and ineffective. Although livestock for slaughter enter Kenya from neighbouring countries, Kenyan pastoralists complain of not being able to sell their own livestock at a fair price.

"Meat prices are kept high by a marketing system that only allows slaughtering at two locations in Nairobi, and where a small number of merchants control sales," IDS said. "The marketing system was devised some decades ago, on the basis that livestock would be sent down to the capital on the hoof, fattened, slaughtered and sold. It never worked well."

Guliye said the livestock marketing problem had grown since the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) collapsed in 1987 after 30 years of operation, as a result of mismanagement and corruption, and the Livestock Marketing Division (LMD) that served it was scrapped.

"During drought [the LMD] used to buy livestock from these areas, while the animals were weak and emaciated. It would keep them in a holding ground and then take them to market. Since it has died, nothing has come in to cushion livestock keepers against the effects of drought," he said. "If you want to improve the livelihood of these communities, you have to improve livestock marketing. It is core. It is essential."

In addition to acting as the buyer of last resort during times of drought, the KMC was to promote Kenya's meat industry by purchasing and slaughtering livestock, and selling both in the local and international markets, according to the Pastoralist Theme Group (PTG). The commission was sustained by the profits made in part from pastoral stock, but paid best prices to the non-pastoral ranching enterprises. At its height, the KMC exported corned beef to European markets, earning much-needed foreign exchange, the PTG said, which facilitated the participation of pastoralist groups and communities in the writing of the government's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.

Soon after independence, Kenya launched the Kenya Livestock Development Project (KLDP), which was financed by the US Agency for International Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The ambitious national strategy was aimed at completely reforming Kenya's livestock industry. Grazing blocks were started in the northern rangelands, and group ranches were set up in the southern rangelands. Immature stock was to be brought from the north and sold for fattening and finishing in the better-watered areas of the south. Purpose-made trucks were provided to ferry stock south to the KMC and ranches.

"However, the northerners did not supply the immature stock in the quantities envisaged, maybe as it made more economical sense for them to reject a system where most of the profits were to be made down south," the PTG said in its Pastoralist Poverty Reduction Strategy.

A number of local abattoirs rose to take over the place of KMC after Kenya's meat market was liberalised in 1975. By then, the KMC had lost its efficiency, and had become notorious for taking pastoral cattle, but paying much later for only those cattle that were deemed "healthy". In dealing with the KMC, all risks were placed on the livestock vendor, who had to endure the bureaucratic delays of the commission. However, the local abattoirs paid cash, quickly decided on which cattle they were buying, and had no bureaucracy. The KMC was unable to compete. As a result, the prominent Nairobi abattoirs operated monopolistically and saw no need to improve their operations. They had no holding grounds and were not obliged to behave as a buyer of the last resort in cases of drought.

"There is no one really attending to the livestock problems. That is why there are problems all over," said Aden Keynan, who represents Wajir District as a member of the Pastoralist Parliamentary Group. "So, literally the livestock farmers have nothing. He is at the mercy of nature, at the mercy of middlemen, at the mercy of everyone. There is no institution that takes care of his interests." The parliamentary group wants a minimum of 10 percent of the government's budget assigned to the pastoral sector.

Fred Mutsami, the Wajir district commissioner and chairman of the District Steering Group, which oversees development activities in the region, said the government was seeking money to improve the road between Garissa and Mandera in an effort to improve infrastructure in pastoral areas. "Roads are not a cheap undertaking. We are appealing to our international friends," he said.

Others say it is not a matter of insufficient funds, but rather a case of marginalisation of an area which was under a state of emergency until 1992. Officials in Nairobi, they say, do not consider the pastoralists of Wajir as genuine Kenyans, in part because the region had once fought to become part of Somalia. Somali is still spoken more widely in Wajir than Swahili.

Mutsami maintained that the lack of attention was "a matter of resources". However, he acknowledged that there had been neglect. "The infrastructure has not been improved for a long time," he said. "Other parts of the country have had a large share of the cake."

The PTG has a number of suggestions for improving the livestock industry in Kenya, at a cost of 845 million shillings. It recommends improving livestock disease control measures, maintaining a few but strategic holding grounds, establishing medium-sized abattoirs in Isiolo, Marigat and Garissa, and searching for external export markets for livestock and livestock products.

The PTG said one of the fastest ways to reinvigorate livestock marketing was to provide credit to the primary traders who dealt in the smallest volumes, took the greatest risks and were impossible to replace under any livestock marketing scheme off-take. "Imaginative ways of financing such traders have already been tried by NGOs and development agencies," the PTG said. "The experience is that micro- and macro-financing can play an important catalytic role in livestock marketing."

As one positive step, business people have recently formed the Kenya Livestock Marketing Council to help change outdated laws and policies in the livestock sector. Without greater support for livestock marketing for pastoralists, poverty will only continue to increase in the northern drought-prone areas, despite the interventions of aid agencies, according to those who work in the region.

"You become desperate with your animals," said Guliye, Wajir's livestock production officer. "At the end of the day, you have to sell your animals at a throwaway price."