THE CONTEXT OF A FAMINE, 1979–84

TURKANA IN CRISIS

This book is about a people in Africa who live by herding animals – cattle, sheep, goats, and more recently camels. They depend on their animals for milk (a major part of the diet), also for meat and blood. They eat wild fruits in season, small game and also some cereals. The latter are bought or bartered or else are grown in sorghum gardens planted mostly by women during the rainy season.

These people, the Turkana, occupy an arid region in the north-west corner of Kenya, bounded by the frontiers of Sudan and Ethiopia to the north, Uganda to the west, and Lake Turkana to the east (see Figure 1). Turkana District covers an area of about 64 000 square kilometres, with a population of 177 000 recorded in 1984 as pastoralists or herders, keeping large numbers of livestock. An additional 70 000 people lived in small towns and other permanent settlements. Until recently, poor communications have isolated the area physically, psychologically and culturally from the rest of Kenya.

In the north of Turkana District, the worst crisis in living memory struck in 1980 when an epidemic of contagious caprine pleuro-pneumonia (CCPP) and rinderpest wiped out large numbers of animals. At the same time, there was a national cereal shortage and much-needed grain could not be moved into the area. Although this is a drought-prone region, drought was not a factor in the disaster, at least in northern Turkana. Rainfall at Lokitaung was 578mm in 1979 and 402mm in 1980, which was above average for both years and the rain was well distributed through the seasons, as Table 1 demonstrates.

As in the rest of the African Sahel region, nomadic pastoralism has evolved as a lifestyle adapted to the problems of coping with sparse and erratic rainfall. The rains come mainly in April and May, but there is a less reliable secondary peak in November (Table 1). At Lokitaung, the November rains failed between 1975 and 1987, giving less than 20mm precipitation in eight years out of the thirteen. Not surprisingly, a cycle of periodic drought and recovery is a significant part of the lives of the Turkana people. It is important to be clear therefore, that the 1979–80 famine was not part of that cycle but something exceptional.

It seems likely, indeed, that the Turkana brought this crisis on themselves. In 1979 Turkana warriors obtained large numbers of automatic weapons as a result of the anarchy in Uganda, following the collapse of Idi Amin's regime. Armed with these weapons, the warriors then raided traditional enemies in southern Sudan and north-east Uganda, capturing large numbers of cattle and other animals. It appears that some of this livestock carried infectious diseases into Turkana District, across 'buffer' areas which would normally have separated the herds belonging to different ethnic groups. The raiding also led to deteriorating relations with neighbouring peoples, so that large areas of the borderlands became insecure and much of the vital dry-season grazing land was unusable that year. As a result, there was widespread famine in the northern part of the District, and following the intervention of the government and international aid agencies, a massive relief operation was mounted. This was followed by a 'rehabilitation' project executed by expatriate development workers who had little opportunity to enquire into the nature of the crisis or into local needs and indigenous institutions.

This study is about the questions of food security and development raised by the improvised programme and longer-term projects which followed. While many details quoted here are relevant only to Turkana District in the 1980s, the basic issues discussed may be relevant to other famine relief operations and to development workers in other pastoral communities. For example, the assumption behind many famine relief programmes is that once immediate needs are met, a rehabilitation or development programme will be necessary to help people restructure 'outmoded' ways of living to make them more productive. Seen at its worst, this has included the widely-held belief that nomadic pastoralists can only join the modern world if they cease their wandering lifestyle and become 'settled'. The purpose of such measures is usually conceived as making poor people richer, but wholesale destruction of their traditional institutions may well leave them less confident and with fewer coping mechanisms for dealing with adversity.

One further point concerns the role of technology in offering solutions to problems of food security and poverty. Later chapters have a good deal to say about one particular technique – rainwater harvesting – which is arguably an 'appropriate technology' for improving food production in an area with the climate, soils and human needs experienced in Turkana District. It is important to recognize, however, that technology cannot be considered separately from the institutional or organizational arrangements necessary for its application. One therefore needs to question whether a new technology can be dealt with through existing institutions even after some evolution, or whether it also presupposes radical changes in lifestyle or organization.

THE TURKANA ENVIRONMENT

Much of central Turkana is a landscape of plains with gentle undulations but there are also mountain ranges running north-south. These mountains are formed predominantly of volcanic lavas, and are associated with the east African Rift Valley fault lines. Most of the ranges are from 600 to 900m above sea level, but the highest peak rises to about 1750m. Gulliver (1955) has suggested that above 1400m rainfall totals of as much as 750mm are common, an estimate which is supported by more recent studies of variation of rainfall with altitude (Norconsult, 1978). Rainfall is lowest near the lake shore (Figure 2), with annual averages of 400--500mm on the plains in the centre of the District.

Rainfall in the April/May peak often comes in short but very intensive storms which cannot be all absorbed by the soil. In mountains, in particular, there are considerable volumes of runoff in the form of short-lived streams. In Lokitaung itself, a threshold rainfall intensity of about 8mm per hour has been found in the hills, beyond which an increasing proportion of the rainfall enters the drainage channels (Hillman, 1980). Sometimes there are spectacular flash floods in which water levels in drainage flows may rise to above a metre in less than two or three minutes. Flash floods usually subside as quickly as they rise, and it is seldom that even the larger drainage channels flow strongly for more than five or six hours. However, in most years, floods in the rainy season sweep away an occasional homestead, and people are sometimes drowned attempting to ford swollen rivers.

Wet seasons are commonly separated by long periods without rain. During these times, weather patterns are stable with bright, sunny days. Highest mean annual temperatures in the District are recorded in areas of lower altitude including the central plain and the lake shore. Dry season temperatures seldom exceed 38°C anywhere, with mean daily temperatures varying from a minimum of 22°C to a maximum of 32°C (Hillman, 1980).

Vegetation is determined by altitude and soil moisture, with most trees restricted to mountain ranges and seasonal water courses, where higher rainfall or seasonal flows of surface-water support greater biomass production. Grasses tend to dominate the plains between the seasonal water courses. The district is classified as belonging to eco-climatic zones V and VI (arid and semi-arid), with areas of high potential restricted to the mountains (Pratt and Gwynne, 1977).

It has been widely believed by development specialists that in such an arid environment human communities must be very vulnerable in seasons when the rains fail (or partially fail). It has also been thought that the Turkana (like other nomadic pastoralists) allow their livestock to over-graze the area, and are thereby responsible for degradation of tree cover and grassland. More recent studies, however, suggest that there is no overgrazing and that degradation has not occurred on Turkana grazing lands (McCabe and Ellis, 1987). Firewood collection near permanent settlements is usually a greater problem and does lead to environmental degradation. Visiting experts who frequently spend only a short time in the area, staying in such settlements,--may see disproportionately more of this. One has to beware also of applying generalizations representing all of the Sahel to particular areas. In the Sahel belt as a whole, there are certainly many areas affected by major loss of trees and grass cover. One symptom is that dust storms are now four times more frequent than in the 1960s. However, such generalizations do not fit Turkana.

Instead of accepting assumptions about overgrazing, therefore, researchers are beginning to examine more closely the causes of the periodic crises which overwhelm pastoral production systems. The Turkana have drought-avoiding strategies which enable them to survive most episodes of low rainfall, even those persisting for several years (Moris, 1988). These strategies include migration, splitting herds, hunting and the use of wild fruits and vegetables. Thus while drought plays its part in the regular cycle of Turkana life, it appears that major crises are almost never the result of drought alone. Rather they arise from the combination of several factors, which may certainly include low rainfall, but which have often also involved livestock disease and inter-ethnic warfare.

Much of the work described here was based in Lokitaung. Situated in the Lopurr Hills north-east of the District, it is a small administrative centre with a population of about 1500 Turkana together with an additional 1000 down-country Kenyans. Founded by the former colonial administration to serve isolated police posts on the northern border with Sudan and Ethiopia, it still retains an administrative function and is the base for up to 200 Administrative Police, as well as the District Officer in charge of Lokitaung Division. To the west is the Kachoda valley, which is an important grazing area used by herders.

In late 1979, townsfolk in Lokitaung became aware of losses of livestock throughout much of the northern part of the District. The numbers of animal deaths were alarming, and visiting herders told of some left completely without stock, whilst others had retained so few animals as to be unable to survive as pastoralists. For example, two herders reported that their total joint livestock holdings were now only five cattle and fewer than ten goats. Visitors said that animals were dying of diseases for which there was no cure. The rapid and dramatic spread of these diseases became more apparent when herds closer to Lokitaung were affected and decimated.

The famine years are appropriately named Lopiar by the Turkana, meaning 'the sweeping', due to the number of animals swept away by disease. According to herders from various parts of the District, outbreaks of disease occurred first in the far west of Turkana, and then spread eastward until the lake shore was affected. Livestock herds in southern Turkana escaped infection and therefore retained large numbers of animals throughout the crisis.

Interviews with groups of herders have enabled comparisons to be drawn between Lopiar and other crisis years in the 1960s and 70s. Eight herders in Kachoda, for example, record that during Lopiar they lost 2120 goats and sheep between them, with losses from individual herds averaging 265 animals. In two previous periods of crisis in 1961 and 1971, average losses per herd were 160 to 170 animals. The figures are in themselves unlikely to be accurate, but data collected by the Kenya Rangeland Ecological Monitoring Unit between 1977 and 1981, confirm that record numbers of animals were lost during Lopiar. These data indicate livestock losses in northern Turkana as 90 per cent of all cattle, 80 per cent of small stock (mainly goats), 40 per cent of camels and 45 per cent of donkeys (Hogg, 1982).

The earliest aid delegation into Turkana following the declaration of emergency thought that contrary to evidence cited here, the famine was due to drought. Their report pointed out, however, that the northern areas of the district were 'particularly vulnerable as a result of heavily armed raiders in Uganda and southern Sudan, many of whom were armed with sophisticated weapons, including automatic rifles' (EEC, 1980). Later, another team stressed the vulnerability of the pastoral economy to recurrent drought, but also identified raiding and insecurity as significant 'drought-related factors', by which some Turkana were effectively denied their herds (ODI, 1985). It is important to note that this report comments that the 'balance of power among different pastoral groups appears to have been upset by the introduction of modern weapons ...' (ODI, 1985).

Other researchers record Lopiar simply as a 'severe drought resulting in the massive destruction of livestock' (Hogg 1982), and this line has also been taken by the Turkana Rehabilitation Project (TRP), the major famine-relief effort launched with European Community funds.

It is not correct, however, to describe all raiding and consequent insecurity in terms of 'drought-related factors'. There is no evidence to suggest that grazing is so scarce in the region that different pastoral groups have no alternative but to fight for resources in dry years. The point seems to be that drought is politically neutral, and to present it as the cause of a crisis avoids blaming national governments or district administrators for failure to control the security situation. It also avoids the need to identify and remedy other factors which may encourage raiding – factors that might include chronic poverty, alienation from national institutions, and trading in weapons.

It was discussions with herders which provided many of the clues as to what really happened in Lopiar. They confirmed that immediately before the crisis grazing was plentiful and they said that many animals which died were in good condition a few days before. This is not consistent with the effects of drought, and tends to confirm that it was disease which caused most livestock deaths. However, it was not at first clear why the Turkana herds suffered such a sudden epidemic, though eventually a chance remark about cattle obtained by raiding indicated what probably occurred.

Not all the details of the story could be corroborated, but the increase in raiding following the introduction of automatic weapons was clearly a major factor (Turton, 1989). There is also an earlier parallel, in that the introduction of rifles inio East Africa at the end of the last century resulted in a temporary breakdown of a relatively stable 'culture of raiding'. The consequent increase in stock theft contributed to the spread of rinderpest from 1889 onwards. It seems that ninety years later, the same pattern was repeated.

RESPONDING TO LOPIAR

Within a period of only a few months of the first animal deaths, many herding families in northern Turkana were finding it increasingly hard to feed themselves. It is reported that certain elders, overcome by the loss of their livestock, chose to commit suicide rather than move away in search of food. Many herders in the Division moved to the permanent settlements at Kaalin and Lokitaung. Animals which survived were left to multiply in composite herds under the care of particularly skilled herders, enabling viable herds to be rebuilt some time in the future.

People who lived in Lokitaung during this time witnessed the swelling size of the town as increasing numbers of herding families arrived in search of food. One member of the local Salvation Army staff had to accommodate his widowed sister's family, his brother's family, two aunts and several young cousins. In addition, visitors were regularly received, and consequently meals were often stretched to between fifteen and twenty people. Faced with this kind of invasion, salaried workers not surprisingly insisted that all children attend school, to benefit from the free school meals. Primary school attendance soared, and the resultant overcrowding encouraged mission personnel in Lokitaung to open an additional eight nursery or primary schools in and around the town. Adults, too, particularly women, were forced into income-generating activities, including the collection and sale of berries and firewood, charcoal and beer production, casual employment and prostitution. Increasingly desperate attempts were made to raise money by the sale of clothes and jewellery. Many of those arriving in Lokitaung in early 1980 were clearly starving.