Land reform and poverty incidence in Kenya

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Land reform and poverty incidence in Kenya

• Discussant Dr Trudy Owens
• University of Nottingham

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Summary of paper

• Land reform is central to Kenyas development
• Importance of agricultural sector employs 70 of
  labour force
• Yet agricultural production declining due to
  inefficient land use
• Absolute poverty highest in rural areas
• Unlikely to meet millennium goal of reducing
  poverty

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Background on land reform

• Colonial land reform
• Post independence land reform
• Settlement schemes
• Land control
• Group ranches

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Literature on the impact of land reform

• Number of studies have found no effect of land
  reform on productivity Migot-Adholla et al.,
  Place et al., Carter et al.,Picknery and Kimuyu,
  Besley
• Only 2 references that suggest there may be an
  impact Miceli, Sirmans and Kieyah, Alston et al.

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Empirical results

• Key findings
• higher ownership of land with a title deed
  correlated with lower poverty levels in a
  district
• higher ownership of land with a title deed
  correlated with higher labour earnings in a
  district

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Comment

• Concern about omitted variable bias is it
  possible to include a variable for
  non-agricultural productivity?
• Is it possible to differentiate land tenure
  types?
• Sample size is it possible to use a household
  survey? See Reyes (2002)