After Reading University I was offered the East Africa representative’s post by OXFAM. I accepted rather reluctantly because I had hoped to go to South Africa which would be such a different challenge. My new responsibility was in fact the East African region – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Sudan – but it was shortly pared down to Kenya and Southern Sudan. East Africa proved to be an overwhelming and amazing experience but none of us, I think, felt truly equal to it.

For the first three years I worked as the OXFAM field director but in 1985 I left OXAM but remained in Kenya representing FARM, and then in 1986 we returned to the UK to set up a permanent base for FARM. Michael Wood was very ill by this time and I knew that the whole weight of the new organisation would fall on my shoulders. He died shortly afterwards.

Reading was a welcome break from working in Bangladesh and East Africa and it provided a time for reflection. I learnt a great deal about development planning and the process of change. I am not sure that when I returned to Africa I was much the wiser but I was certainly more confident and able to make a strong case to donors for project assistance, and to build more constructively on the work already done by OXFAM.

Much of what was established during my time as OXFAM representative and then with FARM formed a firm foundation to the larger, stronger programme that now plays a leading part in East Africa.

A key development in the UK was the setting up of a Friends of FARM supporters organisation (FOF). Retired pig farmer, Ben Boughton, ran the organisation. He put a tremendous energy into developing the FOF groups which promoted FARM, raised funds and went on trips to the projects.

Uganda

There was already a large OXFAM programme in Karamoja, an arid district in the north east of the country bounded by the Didinga Hills in the north and the Rift Valley escarpment and Kenya in the east, and the home of the Karamajong cluster of semi-nomadic tribes.

There had been a famine and OXFAM was a leading group in the famine relief programme but was moving into a rehabilitation phase. The team was unusual for OXFAM and partly recruited locally: Brian Hartley, in his seventies, John Whitechurch, Gilbert Greenall, and two young expatriate engineers.

Brian Hartley was an immensely experienced livestock specialist. He had been a district livestock officer in Colonial Tanganika (now Tanzania)and had worked in East Africa ever since. Gilbert came from a wealthy family, had his own resources including a Cessna aircraft which he used for project work. John Whitechurch had been a professional baritone soloist.

A major contribution during the famine relief programme was to buy new tyres for the district’s road graders which had been lying idle, and all the much neglected roads were then re-graded, opening up the district once more. The team also helped rehabilitate the water supply in Moroto, the district town.

Brian Hartley introduced water harvesting, a means of gathering water in very low rainfall areas, to enable the growing of crops and he arranged the importation of Anglo-Nubian and other breeds of dairy goat to see if the Karamajong could be interested in forming dairy goat producer groups. OXFAM also imported supplies of vaccine for the control of caprine pleuro pneumonia (CPN).

CPN was a major cause of the famine. It decimated goat herds with the result that stronger tribal groups descended on the small tribes and made off with their goats and cattle.

One tribal group raided the Moroto barracks and stole a large collection of weapons.  This led to more raiding and greater imbalance of power between groups in the Karamajong cluster.

By the time I arrived, the district was becoming increasingly insecure. I was ambushed by an armed gang on the road outside Moroto. They took clothes, food and water. Later I was ambushed, this time just over the border in Sudan, again they took water, food and clothes. One of the many army road blocks opened fire on John Whitechurch and his wife Jill as they drove by. A bullet narrowly missed them and they resigned and returned to the UK.

On another occasion, driving down from Sudan through Uganda we stopped in Arua where there had been a massacre by Amin troops at the Catholic mission. Eighty-six people were gunned down in the church. My visit was only a week after the massacre. There was still a blood stain on the carpets but the Fathers had retained their calm acceptance of this terrible event.

The Karamoja programme was closed down because of the serious insecurity but Brian Hartley agreed to work for us in the adjoining district of Turkana in Kenya. He continued to make an invaluable contribution and, with the launching of FARM, we were joined by another livestock specialist, Dick Sandford, who had also worked in East Africa for many years.

Dick worked for with us as a volunteer in Kenya. Michael and I had different approaches to FARM and Dick helped us to come together. He did the basic planning of most of the projects in my time and helped keep FARM on track. He was tremendously helpful and a constant source of good advice. He was a remarkable man and I owe much to him.

Kenya

As in Karamoja, Turkana had also suffered from famine. Many people who had lost their livestock had gathered together in camps fed by the GOK with food from the World Food Programme. We concluded that the emergency had passed and a much greater effort should be made to rehabilitate the people who were in danger of becoming destitute.

BBC’s Panorama team made a film about the feeding programme. I was interviewed and they concluded that I was opposed to feeding. Of course, I was not opposed to it. I simply said that once the emergency was over other long-term approaches should be followed.

We mounted a re-stocking scheme buying stock where there was a surplus and re-distributing it. I think this was a valuable contribution but possibly not very effective. Once they had received more animals they had to repay those who had supported them during the famine with stock, following the practice of ‘gifting’.

We also ran a de-stocking project to take old and useless cattle off people in return for food. We sold the hides to help cover our costs. William Wapakala, who had retired from a senior position in the GOK livestock department, joined us as the FARM representative. He provided excellent guidance when dealing with Ministry officials.

I should record the help of Alan Jones, WFP representative, who flew me around northern Kenya. A wonderful way of seeing the country.

In 1987 FARM launched the Camel Improvement Project as a continuation of the earlier work in Turkana.  Chris Field, who had considerable experience in arid land work, joined the FARM team and led the project. In Marsabit district on the eastern side of Lake Turkana we started experimenting with mobile outreach camps. We ran two camps from which we provided training in raising the productivity of camels, breeding, veterinary care, and birth control for the women, and with the long-term aim of setting up herder associations.

The camps were moved every two to three months to make wider contact with the pastoralists. The camp teams stayed out in the bush and were serviced by Chris who would fly in regularly in the FARM Cessna 206.

This approach was highly effective and a marked contrast to the GOK range support which was static and the pastoralists were expected to come to them. However, it was expensive and not an approach that the GOK and local groups could easily manage, however desirable.

Marketing of small stock was a big problem. There was the annual demand of small stock from Saudi Arabia for the Hadj. Agents were based in northern Kenya to purchase the stock. But the pastoralists were at a disadvantage having to accept prices offered. To help overcome this we bought a lorry which the groups could use to take the stock to the agent offering the best price.

Work in Marsabit continued after I left East Africa with efforts being made to set up autonomous groups under local people.

Chris Morris, who was attached to the Camel Improvement Project, was murdered as he was driving back to our headquarters at Nanuyki. The gang were also driving north in a stolen car. When it ran out of petrol they stopped Chris, made him drive them to the Abedare forest and shot him in the head.  They were all arrested.

Following this terrible event we asked a security expert to give us all training in ways of countering the threat posed by lawless gangs.

In the main text of this memoir the massacre in Wajir, North East Province, of Somali herdsmen is described. I also describe how Michael Wood and I, under arrest at a police station first discussed the idea of setting up of FARM, and the work that OXFAM, FARM and AMREF did following the massacre.

The Church of Kenya training centre at Meru, managed by Patrick Mutia, was an important local initiative and it was there that we supported work to up-grade local east African goats by crossing with exotic breeds such as Toggenburgs and Anglo-Nubians – to produce milkier offspring. Finally, Patrick left this project to manage our Babati Rural Extension Project in Tanzania. Patrick was a brilliant field worker, brimming with energy.

Ethiopia

FARM developed the dairy goat concept under Christie Peacock and it became the FARM Dairy Goat Project, working with community groups in Kenya but principally in Ethiopia. It is now a thriving programme in East Africa and continued in partnership in Ethiopia with the Ethiopian government.

In 1991 we set up the Farmers Research Project under the impressive leadership of Dick’s brother, Stephen Sandford. We worked with local farmers, the GOE, agricultural research workers, and other development agencies, to find more sustainable farming systems. The work involved on-farm trials and running training courses.

The GOE had been dismissive of our work, particularly of the goat project (in Ethiopia goats are a frequent subject of jokes!) but they soon became enthusiastic supporters.

FARM played a large part in an emergency feeding programme in Konso in the south of the country in 1999.

When peace returned to Tigray we started investigating the opportunities for an input to this war-shattered district. Stephen Sanford moved on from the research project to lead this new initiative.

Dr Asefa Woldigorgis was appointed Ethiopia representative. He had held a senior position in the Ministry of Agriculture. He was the most courteous of men and helped us considerably with maintaining good relations with the GOE.

South Sudan

OXFAM started a small programme from a base in Juba, the southern capital. The sanitation in the local hospital was in an appalling state and we constructed more pit latrines. We also brought in a team of ex-patriate water engineers to work with the community on a well-digging programme in Yei in the southern part of Sudan. Many of the defeated Idi Amin army had crossed the border and gathered in Yei.

Nick Stockton, who studied with me in Reading, joined OXFAM as Assistant Field Director for South Sudan. He and I drove north through the ‘toich’ lands adjacent to the Nile – a great livestock area when the Nile floods receded. In one town we asked to meet the community (to use the skills studied in Reading!). We were taken to a large building. The DC was seated at one end and groups of people were penned in like sheep at a market.  It was a court session. We didn’t think this was an ideal place for a Freirian dialogue and were about to leave but the DC urged us to stay. An old man in one of the pens stood up and said in a quavering voice: “It is good to see the British are back to help us – the first visit since Dr McKenzie worked with us in colonial times.”

Sadly, nothing came of this visit. There was much unrest as the Khartoum government abolished the Southern Region as a semi-autonomous part of Sudan and broke it up into regions answering to Khartoum. They also stirred up further tension by arming one of the southern tribes.

After this our involvement in Southern Sudan was scaled back.

Tanzania

OXFAM had supported the mission hospital at Dareda for some years. Dareda lies in the Rift Valley, 60 miles south of Arusha. FARM – Babati  Agricultural  Extension Project – and Patrick Mutia was recruited to run it.

Dairy goats, tree planting and soil conservation were the main initiatives. We also brought in a footpath specialist from the National Trust to improve the path up the escarpment from the hospital.

The Nu, a magnificent natural forest, stretches back on the high ground above the Rift Valley. We chose the forest to experiment with as a community approach in which the local communities would protect the forest in return for being allowed to extract some timber for their needs. This would replace the need for forest guards and lead to better relations with communities living near or in the forest. Our Community Forests and Wildlife Conservation Project was launched in 1992. This project proceeds together with a similar one in Ethiopia.

South Africa

With the help of David Catling as the FARM South Africa representative who had many years of experience in Africa, we started to look for opportunities. The first initiative was the Riemvasmaak Resettlement Project in Northern Cape.

Contact was made with the communities who had been evicted under the apartheid’s ‘Black Spot’ programme. These communities combined their efforts to persuade the GOS to return the land to them.  This they did shortly before we had contacts to build on. We supported a range survey to see what stocking rates would be acceptable to avoid damaging the land through overgrazing and we remained involved to help with the process of resettling. A high priority was the cultivation of the alluvial land on the banks of the river. The intention was to irrigate this land and grow fruit and vegetables. Later a bridge was constructed over the Orange river and produce could then be sent swiftly to market.

FARM was also involved in two settlement projects in the former Transkei in Eastern Cape. These had been set up many years ago and were clearly unpopular because the people lost direct access to their land. One of the inputs we helped develop was small-scale irrigation.

I met Archbishop Tutu, first as Archbishop of Cape Town and on the second occasion when he was also chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. An extraordinary and deeply impressive man. He expressed concern that the new South Africa would tend to overlook the needs of the poor.

The Land Development Unit was set up by David at the University of Western Cape as the South African base for FARM but I do not think the university really welcomed us.

My hope was that funds would pour into South Africa when the new government was established and there would be a demand for the services of the NGOs but this wasn’t to be the case.