Kenya's nomads feel pain of food price rises

By Hereward Holland

EL RAM, Kenya (Reuters) - It is tempting to romanticize the lifestyle of nomads in Kenya's northeast -- a land peppered with vast termite mounds which burst from rust-colored soil like fingers pointing to the cloudless sky.

For centuries, Muslim pastoralist tribes have roamed the semi-arid wastelands, in perpetual pursuit of pasture and water, seemingly oblivious to the borders of Somalia and Ethiopia.

Despite the picture-book image, these tribes, neglected for generations by the Nairobi government and colonial administrations, are at the sharp edge of global conundrums of poverty, environmental damage and now the food price crisis.

The nomads are among the most vulnerable people in east Africa's largest economy, where per capita income is around $580. The government expects growth of 4-6 percent this year.

In El Ram, an isolated settlement 80 km (50 miles) from El Wak on the Somali border, the nomads' survival is inextricably linked to fluctuations in local and global markets, and political machinations in the distant capital Nairobi.

They earn a meager income from selling milk and, on occasion, livestock. The rise in global food prices means that, like many other Africans, their purchasing power is heavily reduced and now they cannot buy essential supplements.

The semi-nomadic residents of El Ram were also affected, albeit indirectly, by the violence that erupted after President Mwai Kibaki's disputed election in December. More than 1,200 people were killed and some 300,000 were displaced.

The crisis laid bare tensions over land and tribe. Fights over water, cattle and pasture have long plagued the remoter, lawless corners of Kenya where many pastoralists or cattle rustlers carry machine guns and other weapons.

For El Ram's residents, many of whom depend on food aid for survival during the dry season, the political crisis meant aid dried up as prices in the market soared.

"Ever since the elections and violence, there have been no food distributions by NGOs (non governmental organizations)," said village elder Mohammed Yakub.

After the vote, trucks carrying aid relief and commercial goods from Mombasa, Kenya's port and a regional transport node, were temporarily halted for security reasons.

That caused widespread food and fuel shortages throughout east Africa -- inevitably prices shot up.

Displacement of farmers in the food-producing region of western Kenya during the planting season and forecast poor rains almost guarantee a poor harvest. Officials fear agricultural output will drop sharply this year.

Food at the market will remain beyond Yakub's means.

Perched on a rocking chair held together by fraying grain sacks, he pours milky tea from an ageing flask as his eight children play around him.