By\nBenson Rioba<\/p>\n\n\n\n
James\nShakita had raised cattle for more than 30 years when he decided the only way\nto save his livelihood was to break with generations of tradition and swap some\nof his cows for crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Maasai herder, 43, used\nto keep about 180 animals until a severe drought hit southern Kenya’s Kajiado\nCounty last year and decimated his herd, leaving him with fewer than 80.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I just gave up,”\nhe sighed, directing his remaining cows into a field for grazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the past, the nomadic\nMaasai tribespeople shunned crop farming for livestock-keeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as worsening drought\nlinked to climate change destroys the pastures they depend on to feed their\ncattle, a growing number are turning to agriculture for extra income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shakita, realizing he could\nno longer rely on cattle for a living, sold a few of his cows last year and\nused the money to sink a borehole for irrigation. Then he devoted a third of\nhis 30-acre (12-hectare) farm to planting kale, onions and tomatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His first harvest made him\nmore than 2 million Kenyan shillings ($19,333).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That allowed him to support\nhis family and gave him the flexibility to better manage the size of his herd\nby buying and selling cows in line with Kenya’s increasingly erratic weather.\n\n“Pastoralism is not\ntreating me well at all. Losing animals year after year has weighed me down\nover time,” Shakita said with a weary smile. “I feel crop farming is\nmy salvation.”\u2026Read\nmore>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Benson Rioba James Shakita had raised cattle for more than 30 years when he decided the only way to save his livelihood was to break with generations of tradition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}