Livestock science October 2009
From pasture to plate - the beef journey
Steven Nteetu and others: Pastoralist
Summary:
Currently, 90 per cent of meat eaten in East Africa comes from pastoralists, who move with their flocks and herds in search of grazing and water. Pius Sawa discovers just how the meat gets from those pastures to his plate. It's an amazing journey.
Suggested introduction:
What's your favourite meat? Is it goat, chicken or maybe beef? Africa's appetite for meat is growing fast. It is predicted that there will be a deficit of meat and other animal products in Africa by 2015, which could mean raising imports to fulfil demand.
Currently, 90 per cent of meat eaten in East Africa comes from pastoralists, who move with their flocks and herds in search of grazing and water. Pius Sawa, who loves eating beef, decided to discover just how the meat gets from those pastures to his plate. It's an amazing journey, and it all starts in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in a kitchen ...
Tape in:
SFX Kitchen sounds. It is lunchtime and I am in...
Tape out:
...beef coming out of pastoral lands.
Closing Announcement:
Samantha Russell, a researcher in Kenya's South Rift Valley ending Pius Sawa's journey following beef from pasture to plate.
Making the most of it:
Set off on your own journalistic journey in search of some origins of a product and lots of interesting people, places and processes on the way. In your introduction be clear what you are going to do, and explain the scene and the stage at each point you stop.
That way you will be sure to keep your audience listening all the way and not lose them on the journey!
Transcript
Sawa
It is lunchtime and I am in Kolping Guesthouse kitchen. I have just met one of the chefs who is serving a delicious sauce today. What do you think it is?
Sawa
Could you imagine maybe where this beef could be coming from?
Chef
We get from a supplier.
Sawa
Many of us enjoy meat from cows, goats and sheep but without much of a thought for the people and places this meat comes from. I am setting off on a journey to trace meat from the plate to the animal. It is a journey that takes me hundreds of kilometres from the capital, up and down hills and then down into the bottom of the South Rift Valley to the Olkiramatian Group ranch of the Maasai pastoralist community. It is very dry here and I meet a woman who is used to this journey.
Russell
My name is Samantha Russell. I am a researcher working down in the South Rift Valley of Kenya. We are about 250 kilometres from Nairobi.
Sawa
Some three hours drive away from Nairobi?
Sawa
Now if you are driving from Nairobi towards this place, what comes in your mind in relation to livestock keeping?
Russell
Well the drive down from Nairobi into the Rift Valley and across to the other side of the Rift Valley where we are now, the western side, you just see more and more livestock the further and further you come and it always amazes me how much livestock you see given how dry and hot it is.
Sawa
Could there be a probability that some of this meat we are eating in Nairobi or elsewhere in the other towns could be coming from right where we are standing?
Russell
Yes there is. I mean there is a healthy market within each group ranch down here and every week animals get bought and taken to Nairobi. So presumably some of it ends up on your plate.
Sawa
Meiponyi Josphat Serimo is a member of Olkiramatian Group Ranch and enjoys being a pastoralist, keeping cows, goats and sheep. He is sure that meat being consumed by people in towns could be originating from a community like his.
Meiponyi
About six months ago our markets were really functioning. We were selling a lot of livestock and they were transported up to Kiserian and I think the next stage is Nairobi. So we are contributing a lot on beef because we sell both cows and goats in large numbers.
Sawa
Deep in the bushes is beautiful Sampu Camp a dwelling place for tourists and visitors who have just had a delicious meal and I wanted to find out more from Samson the chef.
Samson
Today we had an African dinner. We had ugali, we had sukuma, we had a bit of rice and beef. This place is dominated by the Maasai and usually the Maasai, they like meat. That is why you are seeing them now, they are trying to scavenge the bones because without that they do not feel like they have eaten.
Sawa
Amid hardships pastoralists like Steven Nteetu have moved the cows miles away in search of pasture but his goats and sheep can still survive on flowers from the acacia trees. We are standing in a very huge enclosure where you have hundreds and hundreds of sheep and goats but I cannot see any cows. Why is this so?
Nteetu
This is because of the drought. You can see goats and sheep but my cattle have about six months without being in the boma. Now they are in Tanzania. So they have moved because there is no grass in this area. So that is why you can see only the sheep and goats.
Sawa
They are not so much affected by the drought as compared to the cows?
Nteetu
If you try to save the goats and sheep they are not affected like the cattle.
Sawa
Back now in Nairobi, after an amazing journey I now have another delicious meal in front of me. It is rice and beef. What a lot I have learned on the journey from plate to pastoralists back again. How much of the meat you eat makes such a journey. But before I close here are some final few thoughts from the people I have met on my journey.
Meiponyi
Having cattle you can get very many things. For example the supply of milk, the supply of meat and again the skin and others. There is tax collected from the market where we sell our livestock and I think that also supports the government.
Russell
I think they should have a much more recognised role and I think that we could even think of adding a premium from the meat that comes from pastoralist areas because they are doing us a dual service. They are maintaining our rangelands, they are also maintaining the wildlife that live on it and attract a huge revenue of tourism to Kenya. So perhaps we should even be paying a premium for conservation beef coming out of pastoral lands. End of track
