With poor land use, hunger will be a constant problem

It is a crying shame. Yet for a long time the shame has been sugar-coated with legalese, bureaucratic jargon and official statements of intent that only enable the pro-genetically modified organism (GMO) lobby and giant agribusinesses to justify and call for the acceptance of genetic engineering in the country’s agricultural sector.

However, this has not assuaged critics who say that, as “victims of abundance,” Kenyans’ inability to a feed themselves more than 50 years after independence is an awkward, lingering statement of the country’s inability to use its natural endowments wisely for the good of its citizens.

KENYA HAS EVERYTHING GOING FOR IT

Kenya has everything going for it as far as food production and food security are concerned. It is one out of the few countries that are endowed with different climatic systems, from temperate climes to tropical desert, and all the conditions in-between. 

With a relatively vast territory covering more than 58.million hectares, only slightly more than 5 million hectares are cultivated. The country boasts an elaborate network of surface and groundwater systems, but the main rivers have been allowed to perpetually drain much of their waters into the sea or to other territories while incompetence and corruption have frustrated initiatives that could have otherwise ensured plenty of food for everyone.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the country’s abundance is seen in the 164 sub-basins that have perennial rivers and 33 sub-basins with seasonal river systems. Kenya is a land where people continue to sit on unimaginable amounts of groundwater, with Turkana County — which is usually among the hardest hit by hunger — proudly hosting the Lotikipi Basin Aquifer System, which is estimated to have 250 billion cubic metres of water, and which, according to scientists, is naturally replenished at the rate of about 3.4 billion cubic metres every year.

LOTIKIPI HOLD A LOT OF WATER

To appreciate just how much water Lotikipi holds, one only needs to know that the whole country consumes about 3 billion cubic metres of water every year.

Further, Kenya’s five major drainage systems and other sources of renewable water contain an estimated 30.7 billion cubic metres.

What is more, although the rains are not uniform throughout the country, experts say the country receives 365.6 cubic kilometres of water via rainfall annually, with every cubic kilometre estimated to be enough to offer a lifetime supply to 70,000 people.

'WATER-STRESSED'

However, even with such abundance, the country is labelled water scarce and “water stressed”, and is yet to attain food security for its more than 40 million people.

The bigger irony is that even with such an abundance, food production has either stagnated or suffered continued decline. For instance, by the beginning of 2014, the country’s total maize production stood at 2.8 million tonnes, which was inadequate, necessitating the importation of 900,000 tonnes. Things are worse in the wheat subsector, where the national production has stagnated at 350,000 tonnes, which barely meets the local demand of 1.75 million tonnes, making it necessary to import an additional 1.4 million tonnes to supplement local production. Interestingly, this has continued long after the acreage under wheat rose from 144,000 in 2002 to 150,000 hectares in 2003.

As far as rice production is concerned, the Mwea, Ahero, West Kano and Bunyala irrigation schemes, as well as rain-fed paddies (which produce 13 per cent of the rice), have an average annual production estimated at 98,000 tonnes, which is only about 34 per cent of the national consumption. It seems Kenyans have increasingly developed a healthy taste for rice, but have not been growing enough of it.

ANNUAL CONSUMPTION INCREASING

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, “The annual consumption is increasing at a rate of 12 per cent, compared to 4 per cent for wheat and 1 per cent for maize…(with) the national rice consumption estimated at 300,000 tonnes.” By 2008, Kenya was importing rice worth Sh7 billion ($70 million).

The same scenario holds for pulses, a cheap source of protein, that has generally shown a declining trend as well.

“The stagnation of food production, an unfavourable economic environment and poverty are the major causes of food insecurity in the country…the national dietary energy supply barely meets population energy requirements, resulting in undernourishment for a third of the population” says the FAO’s Nutrition Country Profile for Kenya. This has made it necessary for the country to keep importing basic grains, powdered milk and sugar, and to unabashedly keep soliciting for food aid from donor agencies – mainly from the United States and the European Union, and emergency relief from the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

LIVESTOCK TRENDS

As far as livestock production in the rangelands are concerned, most data sources indicate that the production of all types of livestock has been fluctuating, declining between the late 1980s and 1990s and rising thereafter. For instance, FAO says that the number of cattle declined from about 14 million in the 1990s to 11.5 millions in 1997/1998, mainly due to a Rift Valley fever (RVF) outbreak. The stocks started to recover in 1999 but decreased again in 2000/2001 as a result of severe drought. FAO says that after the 2000/2001 drought, cattle stocks increased gradually until 2004, when the population stagnated, but eventually dropped to about 12.5 million in 2006 due to the drought from 2004 to 2006 and another RVF outbreak in 2006/2007 but rose dramatically, peaking at about 18 million in 2010.

More than 50 per cent of the livestock population is based in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL), which are the major meat producing regions in the country, contributing about 7 per cent of its GDP and 17 per cent of the country’s agricultural income. ASALs comprise approximately 48.2 million hectares, (84 per cent) of the country’s total land area.

DEATH OF LARGE NUMBER OF ANIMALS

Although only 9 million hectares can support some agriculture, cultivation and other forms of degradation have led to the disappearance of grasslands and water sources, leading to the death of large numbers of animals.

The observed decline is partly attributable to the changes in ecology, weather conditions, socio-cultural and economic orientation.

“Savannah grasslands can no longer hold vast populations of livestock following constant expansion of croplands into these regions while many of the drier areas act as expansion areas for populations inhabiting high-potential areas,” observes the Kenya Land Alliance.

INTESIFIED CULTIVATION

The increased number of people seeking economic security in the ASALs has led to intensified cultivation, the expansion of cultivated land, overgrazing, harvesting of trees for fuel-wood, leading to deforestation, acute water shortages, the loss of biological diversity and soil erosion.

Climate change-induced droughts have also had a major impact on food production and dietary intake in Kenya. Meteorological data shows that the country has been experiencing minor droughts every two to three years, and major droughts after eight to 10 years.

Typically, the severe droughts have been killing 30 per cent to 40 per cent of wildlife and livestock, and 30 per cent to 40 per cent of crop yields, besides wreaking havoc on the grasslands’ natural ability to regenerate. This decline in land productivity has created food shortages with up to 16 per cent (about 5 million) Kenyans forced to survive on relief food almost every year. Other data sources show that malnutrition affects 25-30 per cent of the population.

POVERTY ‘FACTORIES’

But why has it been that a country so blessed with what it takes to produce for home consumption and export cannot even feed itself?

This is a question that elicits a diversity of responses from experts and bureaucrats manning the country’s policy-making bodies. There are those who argue, plausibly, that land fragmentation has created uneconomic sizes of land that are little more than veritable “factories” where poverty is recycled. Most of the “envelope-size” units cannot even assure the relevant farmers adequate food for subsistence.

This scenario is traced back to the 1960s when Kenya was in a hurry to destroy the colonial legacy of landlessness and ended up splitting the original large-scale farms into smaller units well into the 1970s and 1980s.  The end result has been that much of the agriculturally-rich areas across the country now have  farms whose sizes are not “economically sustainable”.  Today, some 89 per cent of households in Kenya live on less than three  hectares, while 47 per cent live on farms measuring less than 0.6 hectares and only 10 per cent of the holdings, or 575,000 households, have land measuring more than three hectares.

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REMEDY: Enacting a land use policy is key

One cause of food insecurity that has received little attention — yet it determines how much of Kenya has remained productive — is the fact that the land use system adopted since independence borders on anarchy. In many parts of the country, anybody can do whatever they wish with land simply because they have a title deed to that land.

“The land use system is in a state of confusion” says Dr Isaac Mwangi, Chairman of the University of Nairobi’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

Dr Mwangi attributes this to lack of an “overarching” policy. He fears that, “Unless decisive actions to come up with a national land use policy are made, Kenyans can surely expect to be edging closer to crunch time.”

He says the country is itching to attain a 50 per cent level of urbanisation without a discernible national land-use plan and how to manage the needs of millions living in such a concentrated manner.

His sentiments are supported by Mr Paul Chege, the chief executive of Urban Lines Consultants, a land-use planning, policy, housing and urban development firm. Mr Chege says that Kenya is yet to develop an agricultural land use master plan with a zoning system that sets aside and preserves exclusive areas for food production. According to Mr Chege, a national land use policy embeds a “philosophy of how land and natural resources ought to be exploited.” 

To get a good picture of just how Kenyans have recklessly destroyed the ability of more arable land to meet the food needs of millions, Dr Mwangi cites the vast areas between Limuru Road from Kiambu Road/Northern bypass junction in Nairobi to Limuru Town; from Turi to the Muchorwi area in Molo in Nakuru County; from Kisumu to Kakamega Town in Kisumu and Kakamega counties, and from Kisii to Rongo in Kisii and Homa Bay counties. The same phenomenon is  observable from Migori Town to Isebania in Migori County and from Sagana to Embu through Kagio in Kirinyaga and Embu counties.

In all these areas, the residents have massively the land into tens of thousands of parcels, with households placing unprecedented ecological and socio-economic footprints on each parcel, which largely undermines their productivity. “This eloquently reveals just how much the capacity to produce food is being eroded and undermined by unregulated subdivision of agricultural land as well as reckless dispersal of rural settlement.”

According to the Kenya Land Alliance (KLA), a national land-use policy would broadly spell out how land and other natural resources should be used and managed for sustainable food production.

The need to enact a national land use plan is a concern that Kenyans have been talking about but have not been moved enough to see accomplished. In the document, Land Use in Kenya; The case for a National Land use Policy, KLA notes that this has been a concern for Kenyans, but making a determined effort at drafting one has been frustrated by emotions and the sensitivity with which matters pertaining to land are treated in the country.