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In Southern Sudan, A Drive to Update The Image of Cows
Romeo Lomunyamoi's family has raised cattle for generations. "I am always very sorry to sell a cow," he said, voicing a sentiment hindering efforts to turn semiautonomous southern Sudan into an Argentine-style beef exporter.
(By Stephanie Mccrummen -- The Washington Post)
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But government officials working on the new initiative have their own name for the treasured herds of cows across southern Sudan.
"Dead capital," said Felix, the livestock ministry official.
Felix's employees are drawing up flow charts and concept papers that describe a plan for "dialoguing" with village elders to convince them that breeding and selling cows could generate something potentially useful: money.
"It will be a long process," said John Kanisio, who is in charge of marketing for the ministry.
For people to see the benefit of more money, he said, "the wants will have to increase from more basic to more complicated wants."
In other words, a younger generation will have to begin to desire more things -- generators for electricity, more clothing, cars, perhaps a CD player or a university education.
As urbanization intensifies in the larger towns of southern Sudan, those sorts of desires are starting to spring up in rural areas.
In Kimotong, young herders such as Lokwar exhibit the fashion sense of any urban teenager aiming to look cool. Lokwar wore the half-traditional, half-modern regalia of a Manchester United jersey and shorts, several beaded necklaces and bracelets, rubber boots decorated with fringe and stars, and around his shoulder, an AK-47 rifle to guard against raiders.
But besides changing the minds of pastoralists, Kanisio said, the rebel movement-turned-southern Sudanese government must also make the cattle business a viable and attractive option.
Roads across southern Sudan, where they exist at all, are a muddy mess of gullies and rocks, rendering the idea of transporting 18-wheelers full of cattle a stretch of the imagination, especially considering the cost of gasoline.
In Juba, where demand is high and supply scarce, a gallon costs $64.
There are no formal butcheries, much less meat processing plants or organized markets. In the regional capital of Juba, for instance, herders walk their cows to the White Nile River on the edge of town. Hustling middlemen buy the animals, then walk them about 200 yards to a barbed-wire corral, where they resell them at double the price to butchers.
In rural areas, the nearest potential market can be a week's walk away.
And so, to Romeo Lomunyamoi sitting on the rock, a world where cattle are bred, sold and exported for profit seems like a fantastic abstraction compared with the life he knows, where a man with cows is a rich man indeed. He walked out to the field to inspect his herd.
He could point out which cows came from his grandfather and which from his father. He knew that Nyetuko came from his younger daughter's dowry, and that if he had to, he would sell Lokarikari, a red bull with white splotches that he had raised from birth.
"I will check the house and see how much food is left," Lomunyamoi said. "Then, if there is not enough, I will inform the family, and they'll set a time to discuss the issue. Then, if they decide to, I will take the bull and sell it."
