The U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded CNFA the $10 million Kenya Drylands Livestock Development Program (Kenya DLDP). Funded through a Leader with Associates award (Farmer-to-Farmer), the goal of the new program is to enhance trade in livestock and livestock products, thereby increasing incomes and food security for more than 50,000 pastoralist households in Kenya. This program offers a landmark opportunity to small-scale producers in the Northeastern Province, where livestock contributes as much as 95 percent of family incomes and employs 90 percent of the labor force.
CNFA Vice President for Programs Sylvain Roy notes that the new project “will play a crucial role in pastoral communities by improving the terms of trade and promoting the effective use of water and grazing resources to sustain herds particularly during periods of drought.” Further, he says, “The Livestock Development Program will also have powerful and much-needed economic impacts that will permeate throughout the Northeastern Province in Kenya, a province that is one of the poorest in the country.”
Specifically, CNFA will work with livestock producers and processors to enhance livestock trade and marketing and add value to livestock products to increase producer incomes, improve productivity and competitiveness along the entire value chain, support a more favorable policy environment for the livestock industry, and promoting strategies for mitigating the effects of climate change.
Working with local partners—Kenya Livestock Marketing Council (KLMC) and the Agricultural Market Development Trust (AGMARK)—CNFA will improve incomes and food security for at least 50,000 households, create 600 new jobs and facilitate access to credit to catalyze trade, production, and value-adding activities.
Building on CNFA’s successful work in East Africa as well as on the Farmer-to-Farmer program in Kenya, the new project will send volunteers on short-term assignments to provide training and technical assistance all along the livestock value chain, working with pastoralist and women’s groups in Garissa, as well as processors, buyers, and policy-makers in and around Nairobi and Kenya’s coastal market cities.
