ABSTRACT
A movement from subsistence to commercial production represents an advancing transitional frontier as producers perceive opportunities and incentives to modify existing management practices. This chapter presents the significance and desirability of Maasailand’s transition for the future welfare of all Kenyans. It shows that a process driven by the interplay between external circumstances, particularly increasing population pressures and producers’ changing perceptions and objectives. Maasai livestock production and marketing have been examined in terms of the interactions between physical, biological, and socioeconomic factors, in the context of producers’ and national goals. Control over grazing and watering resources is the second key institutional issue determining Maasailand’s transition. An institutional approach to Maasailand’s livestock development problems carries important implications for the formulation of effective governmental intervention. Micro-level interventions which influence specific management practices by facilitating capital investments or by modifying environmental and biological conditions will then find the institutional atmosphere conducive to success.
