Livestock and Hides and Skins Marketing in Kenya: Problems and investment needs

Abstract

The paper briefly summarises the historical perspective on the development of livestock marketing in Kenya, current problems of livestock and hides and skins marketing, and recommends investment opportunities to improve the situation. Livestock production in the country is carried out mainly in three broad systems of production: the pastoral extensive systems in the arid and semi-arid land (ASAL) areas, commercial ranching in the semi-arid areas and also on the borderline between semi-arid and high potential highlands, and smallholder systems in the high and medium potential areas and also in the semi-arid areas. The pastoral and commercial ranch systems traditionally contribute to the supply of beef and small stock meat and the smallholder system mainly supply dairy products and meat (culled bulls, females, and calves) as its by-product. People in the ASAL region have huge livestock resources yet they are poor. In fact the region has the highest incidence of poverty and lowest literacy in the country. About 70% of beef and the bulk of goat and sheep meat produced in the country come from the ASAL region. Therefore, the life and livelihood of the ASAL people depend a great deal on the market outlet and marketing system for their livestock. Hides and skins are joint products of meat and the total value of the marketed animal often depends on the relative market prices for meat and hides and skins. Therefore, both live cattle and hides and skins marketing issues will be discussed in this paper. 2. Historical perspective on livestock marketing system At present nearly the entire beef and small stock meat produced in the country is domestically consumed but a significant proportion of meat used to be exported until the late 1970s and the export market was a major outlet for a significant number of animals from the ASAL region. This was made possible by the creation two parastatals, The Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) in 1950 and the African Livestock Marketing Organisation (ALMO) in 1952, which played key complementary roles in livestock marketing in the country. The KMC, an abattoir and meat canner, was established by an Act of Parliament with the following objectives:  Promote the country’s meat industry by purchasing livestock from ranchers and pastoralists, slaughtering and marketing both locally and in the export market,