Donkey pulls its weight on steep road to Vision 2030

Walter Okello sticks his head out of his car window as two donkeys pulling a load of bricks approach the vehicle.

“Your harness is uneven,” he shouts to the young donkey owner travelling just outside Ongata Rongai.

“One donkey is taking all of the load. Even it out,” Mr Okello instructs him in his role as a donkey veterinarian at the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals.

The owner stops, realigns his harness and carries on. His donkeys will be able to work longer hours and haul more if their harness is adjusted properly.

Animal welfare is important in a place like Ongata Rongai, which is so heavily dependent on donkeys.

They practically built the place.They carried the cement. They hauled the water. And with every brick laid in the fast-growing Nairobi suburb, donkeys played a key role in strengthening Ongata Rongai’s economic foundation.

While many donkey owners would routinely beat, overload and overwork their donkeys through the years, many are starting to realise the financial benefit to be earned by humanely caring for their animals.

Animal welfare is often a hard sell, but it has an enormous impact on the economy. From small-scale donkey entrepreneurs to Kenya’s livestock industry, both individuals and the government are increasingly realising animal welfare really does pay.

“Donkeys help keep the price of goods down,” Mr Okello said. “They’re not bringing goods to the market in pick-ups, so that’s a positive for the economy.”

“They also help keep down youth unemployment rates. And if everybody is aware about good animal welfare, then everybody benefits. The donkey doesn’t suffer and people don’t lose their animals because when you abuse animals, their lifespan also goes down.”

Mr Joseph Mutonye can’t imagine what his life would be like without his two donkeys. They’re his only source of income, and he knows that to get a good return on his investment, he must treat his animals well.

“I get money from these donkeys. They pay my rent, they do so many things for me,” he says as he releases one donkey from its harness in exchange for another. Mr Mutonye says his donkeys are more productive when they’re well-rested and well-fed.

The same principles apply to Kenya’s livestock industry – albeit on a much larger scale. Animal welfare pays, putting money at the forefront of the government’s plan to shape up its animal welfare policies.

While donkeys are economic powerhouses for entrepreneurs like Mr Mutonye, Kenya’s livestock sector has the potential to pad Kenya’s pocketbook on a national scale — something it hasn’t been able to do for more than two decades.

In the 1980s, the government introduced Structural Adjustment Programmes to try and stabilise the livestock sector. The government cut off farmer subsidies and other interventions in the name of free trade and market liberalisation.

“When the government withdrew its services, it did not prepare enough private sector services to fill in the gap,” said Mr Abbas Mohammed, president of the Kenya Livestock Marketing Council.

“So what happened, of course, is disease-control waned, marketing services waned and then of course, there were a lot of management issues. There was a lot of laxity because the government withdrew its services and there was no one to fill the gap,” he said.

In the early 1990s, the European Union, the largest importer of meat worldwide, refused to continue importing Kenyan livestock.

Ms Elizabeth Ouko, chairman of the Kenya Veterinary Association, says a lack of government veterinary services forced farmers to start administering low levels of drugs themselves. Overtime, the animals became drug-resistant.

“Those drug residues are absorbed into our bodies,” Ouko said. They later affect the way antibiotics perform in humans.

“If we can prove that we are able to control the diseases, and we can prove that there are no drug residues in our meat, then we will be able to regain (the EU contract),” Ms Ouko says.

Kenya has been salivating to regain the 25-country market since it lost its annual 147 metric tonne quota more than two decades ago.

Eighty per cent of Kenyan land is low-productivity; meaning about 10 million Kenyans in those areas primarily depend on livestock as opposed to agriculture. The sector accounts for about 12 per cent of Kenya’s GDP and that could grow as the EU has a big appetite for meat.

In 2004, the EU imported meat products from around the world valued at more than $30 billion. Kenyan meat is in especially high demand because it’s organic and produced on natural pastures. “If the government would invest more in the livestock sector, there is a lot of potential,” Ms Ouko said.

Vision 2030 will help achieve that potential said Mr Kenneth Lusaka, permanent secretary for the Ministry of Livestock. The vision plans to open up five livestock disease-free zones which will strictly control the movement of animals, monitor livestock and make use of quarantine facilities to prevent drug residues.

The first two, one on the coast and one in Laikipia-Isiolo, are expected to be up and running by 2012. “If we get to where we are going with Vision 2030, we’re going to reduce the poverty index and we open up our infrastructure,” Mr Lusaka said.

“Once we’ve created the disease-free zones and we’re able to export, it’s going to really improve our economy. We will be able to empower our farmers, and they will be able to reinvest in other areas of the economy.” Mr Lusaka said he’s sure Kenya will be able to meet the demand by increasing animal welfare standards.

“The greatest problem for our farmers is finding markets. Once people are sure of a market, very many people will invest in that venture.” While there’s no guarantee the EU will take Kenya back after all these years, Mr Lusaka said Kenya’s marketing and competition strategies will make Kenyan meat hard to resist.

And while increases in animal welfare strengthen the economy, a growing economy will also support animal welfare says Mr Okello. When the government has more expendable income to invest in infrastructure like roads, beasts of burden like donkeys will be better off.

Better roads means less donkey deaths due to road accidents and fewer abscessed hooves due to wet, muddy roads, Mr Okello says. “Animal welfare in Africa, or in any developing country, is difficult to sell because there are so many other problems — unless you attach animal welfare to improved productivity or livelihoods,” he said. “But hopefully Kenyans will not have to depend on donkeys forever.”