Day 22: Today we went to the Laikipia district, north of Nairobi near Mount Kenya. We visited the ranch that LIME has partnered with in order provide a better value added product to the market. The ranch is situated near Nyeri, and we stay at the Sportsman’s Harm in Nanyuki town. The hotel was very nice and we had a beautiful view of Mount Kenya (see picture).
The ranch was also situated in beautiful spot. The landscape looks slightly greener than in Garissa, this part of the region is high up on the mountains and even though it does not rain a lot it certainly does not look as arid as the North Eastern Province. CARE partnered with this farm, CARE provided the capital on a loan basis for this farm to develop the facilities to host 600 cattle and to grow enough forage to feed the animals. Having a ranch or leasing the facility it is the only way for a cattle trader such as LIME to add value to the cattle. These animals sell very cheap at Garissa because as they are have very little market value especially cattle blow 250 kg. So it is essential for LIME to have a finishing facility. Unfortunately the Boran cow fattens better if left to graze on green pastures. LIME will use feed lot which will only provide less than half of the output that grazing would provide 0.8 kg/day instead of 1.8. LIME will have a difficult job trying to compete with ranches that provide 100% grazing. LIME is already playing in a niche market by buying cattle on a “forward contract” basis, by using feed lot instead of grazing LIME is definitely challenging the way the livestock industry has been operating in Kenya for the last 20 years. The good news is that the view from the ranch that LIME is leasing is beautiful! Mere consolation I guess! While visiting the ranch we were taken to see the fields were the owner was plating maze, bally and grass to be used as forage. We arrived exactly when the worker were finishing for the day so we stopped at the village and had chat with them. While at the village we decided to have our packed lunch, but I could not bring myself to eat my lunch because there were kids looking at us and I felt really bad since I was having a lavish sandwich prepared by one of the best hotels in Nairobi. So I ended up giving my lunch to the kids. I am not sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing but seeing the kids smiling certainly gave me more pleasure than the sandwich. Thinking about it was probably a selfish thing to do on my part but at the end of the day it was a “win win” situation since both me and the kids got some pleasure out of it!