Livestock science October 2009
Community science understanding drought
Samantha Russell and others: Kenyan researcher
Summary:
In East Africa, drought has caused terrible losses, with cattle dying in large numbers. Now, some livestock keepers have decided to conduct a drought survey, to find out what they could have done to be better prepared. Kofi Adu Domfeh visited some of those who took part, to find out how useful such community-driven research can be.
View related article in New Agriculturist: Developments: Coping with drought: A community-led response
Suggested introduction:
For many of life's problems we look to science to come up with solutions. But do we hold some of the answers ourselves? In East Africa, drought has caused terrible losses, with cattle dying in large numbers because of lack of water and grazing. Now, some livestock keepers have decided to find out what they could have done to be better prepared.
The pastoralist community of Olkirimatian, in Kenya's South Rift valley, asked a research team from the African Conservation Centre to help them design a questionnaire. It became known as the drought survey and aimed to find out all the ways that the drought is affecting livestock, people, and the local economy.
Kofi Adu Domfeh visited some of those who took part in the survey, to find out what happened next and how useful such community driven research can be.
First, to understand what the drought means, Kofi meets a pastoralist just as his cattle are returning from a long day searching for grass.
Tape in:
The sun is setting. It is...
Tape out:
...the most important questions they have.
Closing Announcement:
Kofi Adu Domfeh reporting from Kenya's South Rift Valley.
Making the most of it:
This is a story of livestock keepers who are trying to find answers and solutions for themselves. Do some research amongst local scientists or research institutes to see if you can find a similar story in your area. In what ways is people power in research a good thing?
Further information:
African Conservation Centre (ACC),
P.O. Box 15289-00509,
Nairobi, KENYA,
Tel/Fax: +254 20 891360 / 891751
E-mail: acc@conservationafrica.org
Website: www.conservationafrica.org
Transcript
Domfeh
The sun is setting. It is the time when herds of cattle slowly return to the manyatta or compound of their owners. Tonight I can see just a few thin and tired cattle walking into the central pen. They belong to Charles Mbesi. I want to find out what effect the current drought has had on his animals.
Mbesi
In fact the drought has affected the herd and me so much. Since almost two years there were no rains and that became difficult for the survival of especially the cattle. And we have been trying so much. We try to move to different areas, even we move to Tanzania and we lost a lot of animals. I lost about 50 cattle, dead because of the drought.
Domfeh
I am walking along a dry dusty path to a research camp here in the Olkiramatian community where I will be meeting a scientist and a community leader who have been working on drought situation in this community. I really want to know why they have done this research and how.
Russell
My name is Samantha Russell and I am a Kenyan researcher. The recent drought has been very severe according to the local pastoralists and so we felt that we needed to actually find out how the local pastoralists were coping with the drought. The need came from also the local leaders and the local pastoralists who also commissioned the research so that they could find out how people are coping, what are the losses, what are the movement patterns, which will help them in discussing and planning drought and how to cope with it for the future.
Domfeh
In a sense how is it being undertaken?
Russell
The methods which were employed was to hold local leadership meetings within three areas, where leaders came together to discuss the drought and talk about the kind of questions that they wanted to have answered and the kind of things that were going on. And combining what they wanted to know with what the scientists at ACC and long term researchers felt was also important, combining that into a short questionnaire, which would then be undertaken by local resource assessors in each place. Conducted by the local resource assessors within the area. The results were collected from each field site, taken back to the ACC office, analysed and will be fed back in local community meetings.
Domfeh
Let me get to John who is a member of the community. How beneficial is this drought research activity to your community?
Kamanga
I think first and foremost it is about recording drought. Keeping that information to be able then to use it for management purposes is very, very important. But also to be able to use. For us it is so that when times are good we can be able to use it as a reflection of like, look, this is how you were yesterday. Can you think of your future? Can you think of next year? Because if you do not do that, then of course you continue celebrating because there is pasture and then all of a sudden you get into the swing again of drought and then you start panicking and running around.
Domfeh
Having heard why and how the drought survey research was needed, next I go to meet with one of those who went around asking the questions. Josphat Meiponyi is a member of the community and employed by the African Conservation Centre as a local resource assessor. So what were his observations while he was involved in data collection for the drought survey?
Meiponyi
Myself, I managed to move to Eldoret, and I found life is very hard there. The cattle were dead all of them. There are water problems. In fact life is very hard.
Domfeh
For those pastoralists who had been directly affected by the drought, how relevant did they see or regard the survey?
Meiponyi
They really like it because the survey itself was like, it is just more of a Maasai meeting. When it comes to such severe incidences the Maasai have to talk altogether to solve issues. And the questionnaire was more of that. As a Maasai, we are very painful when it comes to droughts or the time we lose our animals. The animals are very important in our life. We depend on them wholly. So when they are dead we are the next victims to die.
Domfeh
With all the responses to the survey in, what is the next step in this drought survey? Back to Samantha Russell and John Kamanga.
Russell
Next we have leaders' meetings planned I think for the middle of November to feed back the results and after that it is up to them to tell us what they need from us next but also to then take those results and continue their own discussions regarding this issue.
Kamanga
One of the interesting things that came out was that, apart from us going out to ask questions, the community realised that there was a lot of knowledge gained as a result of them spreading across. They have seen people who are doing it differently, they have gone to an area and then they have started to ask themselves, Why does this guy have grass yet it is in the middle of a drought? So they are starting to question some of the practices that they are doing themselves. One of the things that came out quickly was the number of shoats in this area is so huge.
Domfeh
By shoats you mean sheep and goats?
Kamanga
Yes, true. For livestock to survive again they might need to cut by half. Now that is a hard reality and with the anticipated climatic changes that are going to come in we might have even worse droughts than what we have now. So therefore they must start seeing how both in terms of practice and in numbers, how to fit in so that they can continue surviving.
Domfeh
For the Olkiramatian pastoralists, their drought survey is just the start of their research plans. There are other studies underway both short and long term, to enable them better understand how to manage their land and water resources and continue to coexist with wildlife. But they now know how they can play their part in finding answers to the most important questions they have. End of track.
