Agony of farmers losing millions of shillings to bloody livestock merchants

By EDWIN MAKICHE

In any other village, the mowing of a cow signifies the flow of milk. It alerts the owner that it is time to take the cow to the milk the cow.

The results is the ‘white gold; liquid sold to hotels, homes and creameries. But for farmers living the along Rift Valley – Nyanza provinces border, it means a different thing.

A mowing cow during the night signifies a scary and sinister phenomenon - that of armed cattle thieves closing in to one’s homestead.

It alerts the farmer to make the hard decision of whether to take risk and rescue it, or leave it and incur losses. This is the life that residents of the region have had to contend with for close to half a century now.

Every year, they lose millions of their investment to a multi-million stock theft syndicate. The cartel takes advantage of the lax security authorities to make a quick killing. An exclusive investigation by Business Beat along Sotik-Borabu border, revealed how the attackers have successfully managed to steal from the defenseless farmers along the porous border.

The ‘merchants of theft’ are said to be the foot soldiers for unscrupulous business people including cattle traders butchers and politicians.

?Unlike reported incidences of cattle rustling in other parts of the country where raiders make an abrupt daylight ambush on a village taking off with large heads of cattle, the Sotik-Borabu case is unique.?

soft targets

The attacks along the border is a coordinated often targeting homesteads of widows, elderly couples, polygamous families, bereaved families. Others targeted are those with perceived ‘weak’  male members and families who are out on a journey.?  Armed to the teeth, the thieves raid the homes during the night. They use scary tactics to keep the owners at bay.

 They also operate on a certain calendar. Though unconfirmed, statistics showed the vice was prevalent between Wednesday and Sunday, a day before the farmers take their stock to the cattle dips and during the rainy seasons.

They also target quality stock, usually pregnant cows and exotic breeds that can fetch higher prices in the market.

An ex-convict who preferred anonymity for fear of being targeted, told Business Beat that the ‘big fish’ behind the syndicate operate illegal abattoirs and butcheries in the region.

They slaughter the stolen cows before the meat is sold locally or transported to major towns like Nakuru or Nairobi.

Reliable sources within the provincial administration told us the thieves hide live animals in Chepalungu forest, Bomet County before transporting them by Trucks to Nairobi.

The ex-convict said the unscrupulous business men took advantage of the new technology to coordinate with their ‘agents’ at villages in Nyamira county and Sondu.  “The role of the agent is to identify possible homes to raid, the ferocity of the owner and possible escape routes.”  He would then relay the information to the ‘foot soldiers’ whose role is of breaking into the farms and driving out the animals.

He also reveals that the enterprise has ‘moles’ within the security system, alert them on the routes the police are patrolling and guide them on ‘safe’ ways. This he says, has aided cattle raids.

“It is a chain business in which real beneficiaries are the business people who pick the stolen stock and sale it at a profit. The foot soldiers and agents are paid commission via mobile money transfer,’’ he says.

corrupt officers

The police, who are charged with tracking stolen animals  rely heavily on ambushes and regular patrols. They also rely on the footprints to trace to lead them to the thieves. But corrupt officers within the system, coupled with sophistication of the cartel has rendered their effort ineffective.

“The situation is not like it was last year. Through patrols, we have managed to reduce the number of thefts by ten fold’’ Francis Kamau, a senior Anti-stock theft unit officer told Business Beat.

But even as security organs downplay the vice, a visit by our team to the region showed how stock theft is a daily reality in the region. The vice has rendered farmers hopeless   on the verge of giving up on dairy farming.

Daniel Mabeya, a farmer at Memisi village in Borabu division is one of them. Mabeya who settled at the area in early 80s says that he has lost 25 exotic cows since then.

This includes an Ayshire heifer and a pregnant Freshian that were unceremoniously driven by the thieves last month.

A visibly disturbed Mabeya told Business Beat that the batch was his ‘last’ saying that he had given up on dairy farming.

Locally, an Ayshire heifer fetches up to Sh30,000 while a pregnant Freshian can fetch up to Sh55,000. Assuming the farmer had all the 25 cows, his worth could be over Sh1 million.

Evans Tinega is another farmer who has stopped rearing quality cows. In 2010, he lost three Freshian cows to the raiders who broke into the enclosure and drove away the stock.

The youthful farmer says that he had invested over Sh 100,000 had resigned from a well paying job to engage in zero-grazing.

“The thieves returned me to square one and I had to engage in menial jobs like brick making to earn a living,’’ he says.

The farmers now call for a long lasting intervention from the Bomet and Nyamira County Governments and save them from further losses.

 They say that successive regimes has wrongfully used political differences between the Luo, Kipsigis, Kisii and Masaai communities to cast the vice as politically instigated.


 

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village livestock