Not everyone knows that Kenya has one of the largest livestock herds in the world, with more than 18 million heads of cattle (17th largest in the world) and an estimated 45 million head of sheep and goats (12th largest) as well as more than a million camels.

More than 80% of our livestock is reared by pastoralist communities of #NorthernKE , with Turkana county alone accounting for 20%. Yet pastoralist counties report highest incidence of poverty (measured by income, expenditure and economic vulnerability)

The paradox is that the wealthiest people (by assets) are also the poorest (in terms of income) and the most economically insecure. Reason? Legacy of Economic and Political Marginalisation spanning 5 decades.

Interestingly, Kenya helped Botswana to develop its beef export industry. While Kenya is still struggling, Botswana earns more than US $100M in good years, from a cattle herd of 2.5 Million - that is less than 15% of ours. I

In 2015, Sudan and Somalia earned US$ 560m and US$370m respectively from live sheep and goat exports. Somalia's sheep and goat is considerably smaller than ours. Presently our exports of livestock and livestock products remain negligible yet our potential as a country is MASSIVE.

Livestock has two critical potential advantages over our current leading agricultural export products (employment and value addition) Few agriculture products can match the value addition potential of livestock.

For example, a single cowhide will yield between 15 and 18 pairs of shoes , which could be sold for anything from US$50 to US$300 or more, which is between two and 10 times the average value of a live cow.

Most important, the processing of leather is labour intensive and the better the quality of the end products, the more labour-intensive they are in production.

Our frontier counties must start thinking along this line. They have enough capital to reap maximum benefits from the livestock sector. @GovMohamudAli @GovernorNanok @GovMohamudAli @Governorkuti @aliroba1 @FCDCKenya @WorldBankKenya @HonAliKorane @kipmurkomen @HonAdenDuale

The #NorthernKE thought leaders : @Asmali77 @WehliyeMohamed @ahmednasirlaw @Ibrahimjohnny @Ahmedkadar1 @Alibash_Mohamed @hirmoge4 @Happy_kulayo @msaladus @QulshTM @RAbdiCG What are your thoughts about this?