Title:
Experts Defend Way of Life for Herders in East
Africa
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Pastoralism remains a way of life in East Africa.
Herders travel from place to place in the dry, dusty
deserts to find food and water for their animals.
But some people think this movement of livestock is
bad for the environment. They say pastoralists
should settle on farms and grow their own food,
especially in times of shortages. Not everyone
agrees. Experts recently met in Nairobi to discuss
what to do about food shortages caused by drought.
They say pastoralists make the best use of
resources. David Mwangi at the Kenya Agricultural
Research Institute says grasslands have time to
recover. He says pastoralists have to leave an area
as soon as the water is exhausted. They move to the
next area that has water. It gives the area they
left time to regenerate before they come back.Mr.
Mwangi says the land used for animals is often not
good enough for farming, especially during droughts.
He and other experts say pastoralism makes the most
sense for dry and semi-dry lands. Jeff Hill directs
policy for the Bureau of Food Aid at the United
States Agency for International Development. He says
arid and semi-arid lands represent about eighty
percent of the Horn of Africa. Livestock-based
economies in these areas provide up to forty percent
of agricultural production in Ethiopia and fifty
percent in Kenya. And in Somalia, Mr. Hill says, the
percentage is even higher. "In Somalia, livestock
systems fuel the economy." An estimated ninety
percent of the meat eaten in East Africa comes from
pastoralist herds. Mr. Hill says Kenya and other
governments have only recently recognized the value
of arid and semi-arid lands. These lands have often
been excluded from government planning and road
building. Herders can face limited access to grazing
and watering areas.Researcher David Mwangi says
communities need to be creative with the resources
they have. He says a good example is a project in
Kenya in which grass is grown in the desert to feed
livestock. "What would happen if we developed a
system where we grow fodder and pasture along the
river and the animals are taken off from the range
and finished nearer to the market? What we need is a
system, and that is what has been really lacking."
He also says more efforts need to be put into
raising camels. Camels are often the only animals
that produce milk during a drought.For VOA Special
English, I'm Alex Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
