The Kenyan scenario will do as Adam's Eden is revisited in an attempt at finding a lasting solution to our daily bread. For, the Lord's Prayer was not vain words that do not apply today despite the millennia of techno-scientific advances and global economic growth. Our daily bread is so easily there if only we were to open our eyes and ears and hearts and hands.
Kalonzo's Foundation has done something akin. And with the good Silk people in UK, some Kenyans will enjoy their bread. At least that will give them the strength to fend off the predatory wildlife that has laid bare the countryside. Sadly, we are still at the stage where animals run wild and so invade our farmland when they lack food- this is unlike in the beautiful Bristol Zoo or out there in Californication where baboons are pets and mistresses.
Yet, the wasteland that Kenya is today is something we have accepted in our midst. The arid NEP, and especially in Marsabit where the world is now aware of the death of livestock is an issue we can do something about. We know very well that rains are seasonal; yet, we are never prepared for the drought. We rely on trans-border migrations in search of fodder rather than adopting strategies that would guarantee localised and more sedentary livestock farming as is done elsewhere in arid lands like Australia and Latin America.
Pastoralism is a cultural practice that has no place in the 21st Century unless when used to keep some people at bay for some selfish reason. Pastoralism is like prostitution (literary 'place before' meaning to cause to stand lewd in the cause of lust) in that some lawlessness is condoned for the pleasure of some other benefactor. As pastoralism is supported by some leaders, the end gain is assured votes and illegal guns that are used to steal livestock from other communities.
Pastoralism has no motive towards proving our daily bread. That is the reason that herders will watch their animals die rather than sell them. In the process, the Equatorial corridor is being stripped of every leaf for feed to animals that will eventually die. And as El Nino brings its revenge, all the soil will be washed into the Indian Ocean leaving behind bare rock.
Need we complain of hunger then? No! We have purposely traded our daily bread for a few seconds of prostitution.
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