When the Land Thrives, So Does the Herd:
The Environmental Case for Smarter Livestock Farming

1. When Rain Becomes a Problem

For most farmers, rain brings hope. But for many pastoralists across Kenya’s drylands, it often brings heartbreak.

Decades of overgrazing have stripped the land bare. When the rain finally comes, there’s no grass to hold the soil — so the water sweeps it away. Floods destroy roads, drown animals, and wash away what little pasture remains. Instead of renewal, the rain brings ruin.

As Booran Ka’uu’s founder, Liban Roba, puts it:

“The whole problem of rain and floods affecting rather than helping starts with the inability of the primary producer to access feed. The grass doesn’t regrow — the livestock eat to the roots. When the rains come, soil wash-off is very high. Even the rain does not bring the grass. It brings chaos and destruction.”

2. The Vicious Cycle of Drought and Floods

The story repeats itself each year:

Drought dries up pasture and water sources.
Overgrazing follows, as livestock crowd into the remaining green patches.
Bare soil is left behind, compacted by hooves and stripped of vegetation.
When rain finally falls, the hardened ground can’t absorb it. Instead, it rushes off, carrying away fertile topsoil and flooding lowlands.

This is how drought turns into flood — and flood back into drought. Without intervention, each cycle leaves the land weaker and the herds smaller.

3. When Scarcity Fuels Conflict

When grass disappears, peace often goes with it. As pastures dry and herds weaken, pastoralists are forced to move farther in search of feed — sometimes crossing into neighboring communities’ territories.
What begins as survival can quickly spiral into confrontation.

As Liban Roba explains,

“Everybody has degraded their grass at home, they go out in search for more, meet other communities in a neutral place that has grass. Guns are drawn, and, you know, clashes or cattle rustling begins.”

In northern Kenya, cattle rustling is not purely cultural — it’s often a symptom of scarcity.

“Two causes of cattle rustling are, one, depleted livestock numbers in a community — so they feel a need after a drought to invade and take from others. And two, demand for dowry and cows,” says Liban.

But it’s also increasingly commercial. Rising urban demand for beef has turned livestock theft into an organized business — where stolen animals are loaded into trucks at night and end up in slaughterhouses by morning.

However, the deeper problem is ecological: drought weakens herds, floods destroy pasture, and communities, desperate to survive, turn to each other’s land — and sometimes each other’s cattle.

4. Learning from the Ancestors: The Dedha System — Reborn

Long before modern range management or scientific mapping, Borana communities had already found their own balance with nature through the Dedha system — a traditional, community-led way of organizing pasture and water use.

The Dedha divides grazing land into three zones — wet, dry, and drought reserves. Each is opened and closed by a council of elders, the Jars Dedha, who decide when and where livestock can graze. No one is allowed to enter a reserve before it’s declared open, and the cutting of trees or overuse of water sources is strictly forbidden.

This ancient zoning system ensured that every pasture had time to rest and regrow. It kept peace between communities, secured grass for dry months, and protected both soil and water.

And it still works. In 2023, pastoralists in Kulamawe, Isiolo County, revived the Dedha system after decades of land degradation and unpredictable droughts. Under the local Dedha grazing committee led by Chairman Abdulkarim Salisa, the community reclaimed their rangelands through structured, rotational grazing. Livestock numbers are now monitored, grazing areas are zoned, and outsiders can be accommodated during emergencies without conflict.

5. Restoring Balance Through Pasture Management

Healthy herds begin with healthy grass. There are simple practices that can be put in use to prevent overuse and protect soil from erosion including:

Rotational grazing - moving livestock between different areas of pasture, known as paddocks, in a planned and regular sequence (as practised in the Dedha system mentioned above).
Controlled stocking rates - limiting the number of animals on a specific area of land for a set period)
Fodder conservation - preserving surplus animal feed, like grass or crop residue, harvested during times of plenty for use during periods of scarcity.

For pastoralists, this approach protects livelihoods before animals ever reach the marketplace. And for secondary producers and feedlot operators downstream, it means a consistent supply of stronger, healthier livestock that can be fattened efficiently — turning a fragile ecosystem into a reliable economy.

6. Bridging Tradition and Science

The future of Kenya’s livestock sector lies in bridging pastoral wisdom with modern science. If traditional grazing patterns like the Dedha system are strengthened with modern tools — irrigation-fed fodder, water storage, soil testing, and cooperative marketing — the drylands can once again become productive, sustainable landscapes.

The lesson is simple: drought and flood are not opposites — they are symptoms of the same problem. But with managed grazing, water conservation, and community cooperation, both can be solved at their root.

A thriving rangeland means more than grass — it means peace, prosperity, and dignity for the communities that have sustained Kenya’s livestock heritage for decades.

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