Herds and harvests that one failed rain can erase.
About 85 percent of the region’s people live from livestock and rain-fed farming on arid and semi-arid land. Between late 2020 and 2023 the Horn of Africa endured five consecutive failed rainy seasons, the longest drought in its recorded history. In the Somali Region more than 2.1 million animals died, over half the regional herd. Families who had been pastoralists for generations walked hundreds of kilometres to find pasture and arrived with nothing. It takes a pastoralist household at least five years to rebuild a herd after such a loss, and the next drought rarely waits that long.
Our role in agriculture.
Most families in the region live from livestock and rain-fed farming, and recurrent drought destroys herds and harvests faster than they can be rebuilt. SEED’s work is to bring the knowledge that already exists about productive, resilient dryland agriculture to the people who need it, in Somali, from people they trust, and together with the water, inputs and market links that make it possible to act on. We work alongside the regional agriculture and pastoral development bureaus and the large resilience programs already active in the region, and we fill the gaps they leave.
Technology and AI
Satellite data and AI can put drought warnings, pasture conditions, animal health guidance and market prices into a herder’s hands, in Somali, on a basic phone, and can tell a farmer when and what to plant with a precision that was never available to the region before.
Research and publishing
We study what works in agriculture in the Somali Region, evaluate our own work independently, and publish the findings openly for the public and for regional and federal government. About our research →
Resilient, productive farming and herding households across the region’s rivers and rangelands.