Dairy farmer trades Devon for Keny

Anyone bemoaning their lot in life might benefit from watching a TV show about highly successful English farmer Richard Gibson’s travels in northern Kenya.

The second programme in a BBC Two series entitled Toughest Place To Be A ... (Farmer), which airs tomorrow night at 9pm, shows the Devon dairy farmer travel to one of the most arid regions in the world, as he joins the Samburu tribe to live the life of a cattle herder.

Back in Devon, Richard treats his 120 Holstein cows like finely tuned athletes and in return they reward him with an incredible two million pints of milk a year.

As no crops grow in northern Kenya, for centuries local tribes have herded cattle. In recent years, more severe and longer droughts have started to threaten the lifestyle of these semi-nomadic herders.

Richard experiences the constant battle for food and water. Most days his host village elder, Lemerigichen, must dig down into the earth to find water for his cows.

It’s exhausting work in the baking heat, yet these herders survive only on a little maize and milk, while some days there’s no food at all.

Richard also learns that as drought pushes tribes closer together in search of ever-dwindling water supplies, they stray onto each other’s territory.

Traditional enemies, they now fight with guns that have come over the border from Sudan and Somalia.