JM Ranch

We held back from sharing our thoughts on what unfolded near our ranch over the past few weeks.

Not out of indifference, but because adding noise to an already burning situation rarely helps anyone.

Now that some calm has returned, here is our honest read on the situation .

For those who weren’t following, the violence began on March 29, 2026, when a 44-year-old Kamba herdsman was killed near Mwingi Game Reserve.

The following day, a suspected retaliatory attack left four members of the Somali community dead.

The deadliest incident came on April 25 in the Kwa Kamari area, where seven people, all believed to be from the Kamba community, were killed.

Then, days later, Joseph Mutemi, 14, a Grade 6 pupil at Kathungu Primary School, was killed in Katuuni village while tending his father’s livestock.

Twelve lives in a month.

A police station had been constructed at Kwa Kamari by the Kitui county government specifically to curb recurring inter-communal clashes.

It remained locked, unused, and unoccupied.

That detail, more than anything else, tells you everything about the gap between policy and reality in this region.

Now.

As much as this looks like a surface-level tribal conflict, my analysis refuses to let it stay there.

This is fundamentally a land and resource story.

Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands cover approximately 80% of the country, and these areas have long been prone to conflicts over pasture and water resources that are often found in disputed or boundary-less land.

What we’re watching in Mwingi and Tseikuru is not new.

It is that same pressure, reaching boiling point.

Here is what makes it complicated.

Residents and Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka attributed the killings to ongoing tensions between local farmers and camel herders from neighbouring counties seeking pasture and water in Kitui.

Herders whose camels graze on farmland, destroy crops like maize, and these herders are alleged armed and violent when confronted.

When you think about it logically, it is very hard to tell a man with camels, goats, and sheep not to graze your pasture, when the alternative is that his animals die.

And their death carries a weight that goes far beyond loss of meat and revenue.

Livestock is identity.

It is culture.

It is the measure of a man across generations of pastoral tradition.

The nomadic worldview holds that what comes from the earth belongs to all who need it, a philosophy that made complete sense for centuries, in open, unfenced, unboundaried land.

That land no longer exists in the same way.

Certain parts of Kitui are now being subdivided and formally titled.

Surveyors are on the ground.

Lines are being drawn.

And with every new boundary, the corridor that pastoralists have moved through freely for generations gets narrower.

Research shows that rangeland subdivision and increased sedentarisation have encouraged the forced concentration of grazing pressure around diminishing resources; with measurable consequences for pasture quality and the land’s ability to recover after drought.

Then there is the angle nobody talks about enough.

Local residents - many of whom have been selling their land to have cash and converted it into livestock, because livestock remains the most legible, trusted investment in this economy.

Then they find themselves with animals and no land to graze them on.

They have sold the very ground their investment needs to survive.

That contradiction is going to keep producing tension whether or not anyone fires a single shot.

The imbalancement of resources masking itself as a tribal conflict and we will keep misreading it, and keep losing lives, for as long as we treat it as the latter.

We are paying very close attention to what this moment is signalling about the decade ahead.

This weekend has definitely had me feeling reconnected to myself.

And this sparked an idea that maybe we can help you reconnect with yourself…

This week, we doubled our water storage capacity at one of our properties from 11,000 to 22,000 liters! 💪✨

Being based in a semi-arid region, reliable access to water is one of our biggest challenges.

This rain season, the downpour has been extreme generous, although every good rainy season is often followed by a period of harsh drought.
At least, this is what many meteorologists are already warning about.

At JM Ranch, we take these forecasts seriously because the lives of our livestock depend on it.

On top of that, nothing beats fresh rainwater for the health of our goats, sheep, and cattle, it's much better for their joints than the salty borehole water dry seasons forces us to rely on. 🐐🐑🐄

We remain committed to harvesting the purest blessing from above, improving our rainwater capture, and stewarding our resources wisely. 🙏

Resilience in ranching comes from planning for the hard seasons. 🌱💙