Kenyan farmers use goats as new currency #kenya

Faced with increasingly scorching heat and
drought that have lasted two years in Kitui County in
Eastern Kenya, a community banking group has moved their
investments to a new climate-resilient currency: goats.
The small-scale farmers, who contribute funds to a savings
pool and are eligible for small loans from it, aimed to use
the funds to improve their farms and boost their harvests of
hardy crops like pigeon pea.
"But with this kind of climate, which has dried up even the
most resilient pigeon peas on our farms, no other crop can
easily survive," said Elizabeth Nguuti, a farmer from the
Kithambioni Self Help Group in Kithambioni village, in the
county's Mwingi region.
So the group has instead turned to a safer investment to
hold onto their cash: hardy local goats.
"We are now banking on indigenous goats that have
survived this kind of climate for years," said Nguuti, a 39-
year-old mother of four.
Most of the goats in the area are small East African goat
breeds crossed with larger Galla goats, which hail from
even drier areas further north in Kenya.
What the new goats can do, farmers say, is handle
extremely hot and dry conditions, which are becoming more
common in the region, known broadly as Ukambani. Nguuti
said the last time the area had enough rain to harvest a
substantial crop was in 2012, making it difficult for
members of the banking group to repay loans and unwise to
take out new ones for crop production.
So-called "table banking" - conducted over an ordinary
family table - was introduced to the Mwingi area in 2011 by
ActionAid International Kenya - a humanitarian
nongovernmental organisation - as part of an effort to
strengthen livelihoods in the difficult region. But changing
heat and rainfall have made that difficult.
"We were so worried when the climatic conditions worsened
in this area. But the farmers, through their indigenous
knowledge, introduced the indigenous goats to cushion the
situation, and we are happy it has worked," said Serah
Mwingi, the organisation's programme officer in Mwingi
office.
The organisation introduced the purebred white Galla goats
to help improve the drought resistance of the local animals,
Mwingi said. As the goats are also slightly taller, they can
also reach higher into brush for food, according to an article
published by Infonet Bio-Vision , a project of the Biovision
Foundation, a Swiss nongovernmental organisation.
Kwaituto Self Help Group, with 25 members - 22 of whom
are women - now has more than 300 goats bred through the
community banking initiative. Since launching the move
into goats, they have seen their investment total rise from
Sh 13,000 ($150) in 2012 to Sh. 68,800 ($810) last month.
'LIFE SAVING ANIMALS'
"Indigenous goats are our main livelihood security in this
drought-stricken area. They eat literally any vegetation
available, whether sweet or bitter, they drink very little
water, they are hardly infected by diseases, and for me, they
are the life saving animals," said Musili Kaka, the head of
Kwaituto Self Help Group.
Jane Ngima, from the same group, recalls how four months
ago, when she was expected to repay her loan from the
community bank, she did not have the cash. "I sold one
goat, for Sh 3,000, paid off the loan which was Sh 1,200, and
used the remaining money to buy a younger goat," she said.