Assessing The Impact Of Tsetse Fly On Livestock Productivity Using Geospatial Technologies, Case Study; Kubo South Location, Kwale County, Kenya

Abstract

Livestock production plays an important role as subsistence, for draught power and as an income earner. According to KENTTEC 2017 report, the agricultural sector in Kenya contributes 24% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); 12% of this is contributed by the livestock subsector. However, the livestock production sector has been facing some challenges such as animal diseases and scarce pastures for the livestock. The common disease affecting livestock productivity in the study area around Shimba Hills is Animal trypanosomiasis which is a parasitic disease that is transmitted by tsetse flies. Tsetse flies use various land cover and land use as their habitats, Tsetse fly presence is usually related to the characteristics of land use and land cover such as vegetation. Therefore, mapping the distribution and abundance of tsetse flies in various land covers and land use and hence determining the land covers and land uses preferred by tsetse flies and those that are not preferred as habitats is necessary. This research aimed at enhancing livestock productivity using remote sensing and GIS technologies. It involved mapping the land use and land cover around Shimba Hills National Reserve using remote sensing technology and overlaying it with the entomology datasets in order to establish the relationship between land use land cover and the tsetse distribution in the study area. Entomology data shows total number of tsetse flies collected in 171 traps which are distributed in various land covers and land uses in the study area. The impact of tsetse flies on livestock productivity was then assessed by processing various livestock productivity indicators in the area of study. An overlay with tsetse fly distribution maps established that there were cases lying outside the areas considered as tsetse flies’ hotspots. This could be that the infections were due to T. vivax, which is a type of trypanosome known to be transmitted both biologically by tsetse and mechanically by biting flies such as stomoxys. It was established that some households have lost up to 8 cattle due to trypanosomiases which is a great loss to farmers as each cattle costs an average of Kshs. 30000. The frequency of livestock treatment in all the villages in the study area was alarming considering that the cost of treatment per animal was high. Some households recorded up to 8 times treatment of animals within six months It was established that most households spend up to 5000 Kenyan shillings annually to treat an animal and this is very costly to the farmers. It was recommended that interventions and tsetse control should be done in Msulwa village and in the areas that are close to the fence of the park as this will prevent tsetse flies from vii moving to places farther away from the park. It was recommended that also further research should be done on the biting flies that have the possibility of transmitting trapanosomosis.