Livestock registration key to ending rustling

Cattle rustling has left a trail of devastation in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions — which comprise 80 per cent of Kenya’s land mass and pastoralists who own 31 million livestock. Reactive strategies by Government to stamp out the menace have seen livestock robbers to temporarily vanish across porous borders and leave grieving widows and tearful orphans in their wake, raiding the villages when security agents leave.

Stolen herds have proved hard to trace despite the centuries-old marking practices involving hot iron branding, clan identification marks and tattooing. But as these have proved crude and largely ineffective, more modern, but also costlier methods such as bar coding, two-dimension symbology, radio frequency identification or scanning are used in the West.

Today, however, a simple, but brilliant homegrown solution is being used in arid zones to complement efforts by veterinarians and regional security organs to increase the number of branded animals. Livestock are getting ‘number plates’ and ‘log books’ to identify their areas of origin and owners. This should make it harder for stock thieves to dispose of their ill-gotten booty.

Targeted programmes

The initiative will bring Kenya into harmony with international market stipulation that livestock products for trade bear identification or registration that leaves a paper trail proving ownership. Such standardisation will make it easier to eliminate rustling, control livestock diseases and introduce targeted, best-practice husbandry programmes.