Addis Fortune (Addis Ababa)
Tesfalem Waldyes
7 April 2008
(Page 2 of 3)
Meles admitted that there is a water shortage and problems associated with it in the southern and eastern parts of the country. However, he rejected assertions by opposition MPs that drought has caused the death of humans and cattle in some parts of the country, including Borena.
"Complaints about deaths of people and cattle are false," Meles told Parliament.
Indeed, there is no officially reported human death toll due to famine to date. Nevertheless, roaming around the weredas of Borena Zone reveals an area overwhelmed by carcasses. Every other day, dogs and vultures enjoy a new addition of such dead bodies. In some places, the villagers try to collect the carcasses in one place, and in a few locations they are tried of burning them. For pastoralists in Borena, the scene of someone pulling dead bodies of cattle is hardly startling.
Eyya Eroro, a resident of Denebela Bedena Kebele in Dire Wereda, has been doing it frequently in the past three months. After pulling the first few bodies, he had the energy to drag them far away from his village; later, nine carcasses lay on the bush only few minutes walk from his hut. Many of the other of his 121 cattle were found dead after a futile attempt to search for pasture.
Eyya now fears for the survival of his remaining 10 cattle; he wonders where he will get food for his eight children and two wives should they all die.
"I could get no milk," Eyya said. "I only have had tea and roasted maize since this morning."
When he started to talk about what he had eaten on Saturday afternoon, March 22, his wives and other women surrounded him smiled, but were embarrassed. Milk being plenty in their normal life, calling tea with roasted maize as food appeared to the women rather a humiliation. Had there been a guest visiting them a few months before the drought, the women would have shown how they proportionally mix the flour of maize with milk before they prepare their favorite traditional food, Shumo. Now such is a luxury to even think about. Whether it is roasted, baked for dough or prepared as porridge for children, maize is the only food available in their houses. However, Eyya see that purchasing maize from the local market has become unaffordable.
"We are buying a quintal of maize for 300 Br," Eyya told Fortune. "The price has doubled after the drought."
With prices going up, Eyya and Kalecha were forced to sell their cattle in order to get enough money to purchase maize.
Dwindling Values
According to assertions by Prime Minister Meles to Parliament two weeks ago, people like Eyya and Kalecha should be alright. Unlike previous droughts when the value of their cattle goes down, now they fetch better prices.
"Previously, when droughts occur, the price of cattle goes down," Meles said in Parliament. "However, there is no such a thing now. They [herders] can sell them at good a price . . . and they are also selling the cattle at better prices than ever before."
Unfortunately, the market has not been as generous to pastoralists in Borena. The higher maize prices are, the lower it seems the value of their cattle is getting. Offers they get from buyers range from 30 Br to 600 Br, which is disappointingly a far cry from the 2,500 Br to 5,000 Br their cattle used to earn them during normal days. Eyya, for instance, has sold 11 cattle, of which seven brought to him 300 Br each, two 100 Br each, and the other two 45 Br and 30 Br.
Kalecha's experience was a little different. He sold 10 cattle with prices ranging from 300 Br to 600 Br.
"There are a couple which I took to the market but could not sell," Kalecha said, looking frustrated. "The buyers saw their condition and refused to take them."
Pastoralists Fortune talked to in various weredas in Borena zone shared similar experiences.
Ironically, it seems a bonanza for some urban based pastoralists such as Wegene Debere, who lives in the outskirts of Yabelo town, the seat of Borena Zone, 570Km south of Addis Abeba. He had 25 cattle before drought hit Borena; now he herds 40 additional cows in his barn. He bought them from the cattle market in Dubeluk town, located 71Km from Yabelo.
He told Fortune that he transported them all on a rented Isuzu truck for almost all were too weak to be raided. Two, for instance, have died after they arrived at his barn, and another one could not stand in its feet.
"I bought them for 600 Br to 700 Br each," Wegene said, while feeding the starved cows from piles of hay stock in his barn. "If it was not for the drought, each of them would have cost me 1,500 Br to 1,600 Br."
But finding hay from a drought affected pastoral rural area is a new challenge to Wegene. A bell of hay, weighing 15Kg, was on sale for 35 Br last week. Wegene said if prices go up further, he would have no other options but to buy it whatever it could cost. Businessmen in the area began transporting Isuzu loaded hay there in there in a bid to take advantage of the higher demand. Some said they would not hesitate to travel as far as Entoto to buy cheaper hay.
Beyene Jigeso, a herder in Dubeluk town, was one of these paid 5,500 Br to transport hay from Entoto to his place. When it arrived, though, it was too late to save 19 of his 70 cattle: three more died on the same day that he gave this interview to Fortune.
"What should I do?" he said, watching three of his neighbors dragging dead cattle out. "They are dying while they eat."
Most of pastoralists share such frustration and more. They could not find a solution better than buying and providing water and hay for their cattle.
The government and NGOs operating in the area have established feeding centers in suitable location in each weredas. They provide hay, concentrated food and water. According to Geda, the vice administrator, his administration was able to reach 14,227 cattle through a feeding center as well as giving direct aid to pastoralists.
"What has been provided for cattle is lower than the needed amount," he admitted.
Enough, Not Too Much
Animal science recommends that every cattle should get 3.5Kg of hay and 1.5Kg of concentrated food, according to Tadesse Kassa, animal production team leader in Miyo Wereda. The amount hay that has been provided in his area has gone down to two kilograms, disclosed Tadesse. Even this amount is only available for the cattle kept in the feeding centers.
Pastoralists are allowed to bring up to five cattle to feeding centers. Kalecha took five of his cattle to one of the feeding centers near his home. One feeding center normally hosts 250 to 300 cattle, and it is only cows that are allowed to be fed there. In some places, calves also kept in separate places, although their mothers still claim priority.
"If calves are kept with their mothers, it would affect the well-being of the weakened cows," Tadesse said.
As a result of similar conclusions, pastoralists began killing calves to save their mothers. A casual look at the surrounding of feeding centers reveal carcasses of such victims scattered. Many agree that the lack of enough animal food has brought this.
There are others who fear that what is seen in the population of cattle may happen to people, if the drought escalates further. Those operating on the ground working for NGOs, such as Jateni Sora, program manager at Borena Field Office GAYO Pastoral Development Initiative, warn that a failure of the next rainy season may result in "mass death". These are people who are not satisfied with the response to the developing humanitarian crises. The volume of food aid is in sufficient, they say, and in some places, like Eyaa's village, there are none.
"We've heard that aid is coming," said Jarso Jateni, a local militia in Eyya's Kebele. "However, we did not receive anything."
Jarso has lost 26 of his cattle. Frustrated for waiting the government, Jarso and others are buying maize to feed their children and themselves from the local market.
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