Between 1965 and 1980 more than US$ 650 million were spent on livestock development projects in sub-Saharan Africa, yet progress was disappointing (ILCA, 1980). The reason for this generally poor performance was that livestock development projects in the rangelands were commonly planned, designed and implemented without sufficient knowledge of the dynamics of the livestock production systems they were supposed to improve (ILCA, 1980).
Western "experts" were largely responsible for preparing these projects: with their backgrounds in ranching, they took it for granted that beef production was the most appropriate mode of livestock production in arid and semi-arid rangelands and designed projects to increase the marketable surplus of beef from pastoral production. Milk production, a major goal of pastoralists, was largely ignored. None of the projects had a major focus on improving the productivity of small ruminants or camels. Hence, little attention was given to making the pastoralists' subsistence production system more efficient. It is thus not surprising that little information was collected on the productivity of pastoral cattle and sheep and virtually none on goats and camels (Widstrand, 1975).
Livestock development projects were largely processes of trial and error. As Eicher and Baker (1982) noted, "Research on the behaviour of livestock herders in Africa is about at the same point where research was on the economics of crop production some 20 years ago... many assertions and sparse supply of facts." Dahl and Hjort (1976) emphasised that in the absence of detailed productivity data " many thousands of nomads are the objects (and victims) of reforms and programmes based on unfounded theories rather than firsthand knowledge."
After sponsoring a workshop on the design and implementation of livestock development projects in 1980, ILCA decided to conduct an in-depth interdisciplinary study on a particular pastoral production system. The objectives of this endeavour were to provide a quantitative and qualitative description of the production system in order to clarify causal relations among its components and provide information that would facilitate:
· identification and analysis of the constraints that limit the output of the system· evaluation of the impacts of possible alternative interventions or strategies of resource exploitation
· improvement of the design of future development projects as well as evaluation of their impacts on the production system.
Kenya was selected for this in-depth study because it offered a wide range of pastoral systems, differentiated largely by environmental, cultural and historical factors. The Maasai in Kajiado District were selected because of their easy accessibility and relatively better production potential. Maasailand had also been the site of various development activities under Phases I and II of the Kenya Livestock Development Project (KLDP), which would allow observation of the effects of development efforts on a traditional production system. Finally, ILCA had already begun gathering information on Maasai livestock production so that new efforts could be built on the information obtained and analyses carried out in previous years.
After extensive discussions with officials of the Kenya Ministry of Livestock Development, who had intimate knowledge of Kajiado District, an area of about 1600 km in the Kaputiei and Kisongo Sections was chosen. This study area, lying between longitude 37°30' and 37°50' E and latitude 2°10' and 2°40' S, covered three group ranches: Olkarkar, Merueshi and Mbirikani. The study involved an interdisciplinary team of scientists in animal production, veterinary science, range ecology, economics and sociology. This report synthesises the results of their research among the pastoral Maasai.
Although the research results and analyses reported in this volume pertain to the Maasai livestock production system, many of the features and the dynamic processes and problems described and the solutions suggested may be applicable to other pastoral livestock production systems in Kenya and in other African countries.
Dahl G and Hjort A.1976. Having herds: Pastoral herd growth and household economy. Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology 2. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden. 335 pp.
Eicher C K and Baker D C. 1982. Research on agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa: A critical survey. MSU International Development Paper 1. Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA. 335 pp.
ILCA (International Livestock Centre for Africa). 1980. Pastoral development projects. Report on a workshop on the design and implementation of pastoral development projects for tropical Africa, held in Addis Ababa, 25-29 February 1980. ILCA Bulletin 8:3-13.
Widstrand C G. 1975. The rationale of nomad economy. Ambio 4:146-153.
