Agricultural Development policy, Law and Land Tenure

1
LECTURE II

• Agricultural Development policy, Law and Land
  Tenure

2
Introduction

• The growth of the Kenyan economy is highly
  correlated to growth and development in
  agriculture
• In the first two decades after independence, the
  agricultural sector recorded the most impressive
  growth in sub-Saharan Africa at an average of 6
  per annum for agriculture and 7 for the national
  economy
• This could be attributed to the rallying call of
  Rudini Mashambani Mzee Kenyatta
• Growth was spurred by expansion due to ample land
  and better us of technology

3
Introduction

• Government also established and supported many
  agricultural institutions such as farmers
  cooperatives and institutions for agricultural
  inputs (KFA), marketing (KPCU), credit (AFC), and
  agro-processing
• Budgetary allocation to the sector was at an
  average 13 of national budget
• However, this was not sustained and between 1980
  and 1990 the sector recorded an average annual
  growth rate of 3.5 that reduced to 1.3 in the
  1990s
• The decline started to reverse in 2000 when
  average growth rate picked up to 2.4

4
Introduction

• The growth after 2000 was spurred by the NARC
  Governments concerted efforts especially in
  2003, to revive agricultural extension and other
  institutions and to increase investment in the
  agricultural sector
• The Government identified agricultural sector as
  a priority and hence key to economic growth.

5
Introduction

• More investment was gradually put in the sector
  and budgetary allocation was increased at a rate
  of 4.5 of national budget annually
• These gains were however set back by the post
  election violence to the extent that the sector
  reflected a negative 2.5 growth rate in 2008.

6
What is Agricultural Policy

• Is a course of action that is formulated, adopted
  and pursued by the government to enable it
  achieve certain prescribed agricultural goals.
• It is within the framework of this policy that
  priorities for agricultural development are set
  up.
• Projects are then implemented during the
  plan-period as the necessary resources become
  available.

7
What is Agricultural Policy

• The agricultural system of a country cannot
  improve and increase its production without
  deliberate efforts by the government to develop
  the system.
• It is the responsibility of the government to
  ensure adequate supplies of food, fibre, shelter
  and other social amenities for its people.

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Agricultural Policy ASDS

• The Agricultural Sector Development Strategy
  (ASDS, 2010-2020) is the national policy document
  for the sector ministries and stakeholders in
  Kenya.
• ASDS is a revision of the Strategy for
  Revitalizing Agriculture (SRA 2004)
• It incorporates the successes and lessons learned
  from the SRA to provide the framework for
  stimulating, guiding and directing progressive
  agricultural growth and development in the next
  10 years

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Agricultural Policy ASDS

• ASDS proposes realistic policies and
  institutional changes that are necessary for
  creating a vibrant and productive agricultural
  sector.
• The strategy is expected to encourage and enhance
  positive participation among the civil society,
  individual farmers, farmer organizations and
  private sector.

10
ASDS Vision and Mission

• Vision A food secure and prosperous nation
• Since the agricultural sector is the backbone of
  the economy (and the means of livelihood for most
  of the rural population) it is inevitably the key
  to food security and poverty reduction.
• In this strategy, the overall goal of
  agricultural sector is to achieve a growth rate
  of 7 percent per year over the next 5 years.

11
ASDS Mission

• Given the critical strategic issues that need to
  be addressed, the strategic mission for the
  sector is An innovative, commercially oriented
  and modern agriculture.

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Strategic Thrust

• Overall development and growth of the sector is
  anchored in two strategic thrusts
• Increasing productivity, commercialization and
  competiveness of agricultural commodities and
  enterprises
• Developing and managing key factor of production

13
Sector Targets

• Assuming conducive external environment and
  support from enabling sectors targets to be
  achieved by 2015 include
• Reduced number of people living below absolute
  poverty lines to less than 25 to achieve first
  MDG
• Reduced food insecurity by 30 to surpass the
  MDGs
• Increased contribution of agriculture to the GDP
  by more than KES 80 billion per year set out in
  Vision 2030
• Divest from all state corporations handling
  production, processing and marketing that can be
  better done by the private sector

14
Sector Targets

• Reformed and streamlined agricultural services
  such as in research, extension, training and
  regulatory institutions to make them effective
  and efficient
• The strategic thrust of increasing the
  productivity, commercialization and competiveness
  of agricultural commodities and enterprises will
  enable the sector to export more outputs, earn
  the country foreign exchange and create employment

15
Agricultural Policy

• Agricultural policy in Kenya revolves around the
  main goals of
• Increasing productivity and income growth,
  especially for smallholders
• Enhanced food security and equity, emphasis on
  irrigation to introduce stability in agricultural
  output, commercialisation and intensification of
  production especially among small scale farmers
• Appropriate and participatory policy formulation
  and environmental sustainability.

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Agricultural Policy

• The key areas of policy concern, therefore,
  include
• Increasing agricultural productivity and incomes,
  especially for small-holder farmers.
• Emphasis on irrigation to reduce over-reliance on
  rain-fed agriculture in the face of limited high
  potential agricultural land.
• Encouraging diversification into non-traditional
  agricultural commodities and value addition to
  reduce vulnerability

17
Agricultural Policy

• Key areas of policy concern
• Enhancing the food security and a reduction in
  the number of those suffering from hunger and
  hence the achievement of MDGs.
• Encouraging private-sector-led development of the
  sector.
• Ensuring environmental sustainability.

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Key Policy Concerns

• Declining agricultural performance
• Performance slackened from an average of 4.7 in
  the first decade post independence to only below
  2 in the 90s. Decline culminated in a negative
  growth rate of -2.4 in 2000.
• Decline implies lower levels of employment,
  incomes and food insecurity for a vast majority
  of rural Kenyans

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Key Policy Concerns

• Limited high potential agricultural land and
  over-reliance on rain fed agriculture
• Only about 17 of the countrys land is high and
  medium potential agricultural land
• Most intensive crop and dairy production takes
  place here.
• The rest is arid and semi arid, not suitable for
  rain fed agriculture.
• Thus increasing agricultural production can only
  come from intensification of land use in the high
  and medium potential lands.

20
Key Policy Concerns

• Limited diversification of Agricultural
  production
• Narrow base of agricultural products, especially
  exports leads to high vulnerability of incomes to
  the international market trends.
• The sector is characterised by weak vertical
  integration with weak institutions and support
  services for agricultural exports.
• Only a few commodities provide livelihood for
  over 85 of the population
• Despite the potential for exports of fresh
  produce it only accounts for 3 of the total
  production of fresh produce.

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Key Policy Concerns

• Poor and inadequate rural infrastructure
• Poor rural roads, markets and transport systems
  result in high transaction costs and
  inaccessibility to input and output markets are
  among the main concerns for the sector.
• Inadequate and declining research in agriculture
• There is inadequate demand driven research.
• There is ineffective extension and delivery
  system of research findings.

22
Key Policy Concerns

• Agricultural sector financing and related
  activities.
• Lack of finance for agriculture limits increasing
  production and investment in value addition
  activities in agriculture.
• Inaccessibility to credit limits the range of
  activities, type of technology used and scale of
  operations that a farmer can adopt on his farm.

23
Key Policy Concerns

• Limited development and exploitation of the
  livestock sector.
• Despite the long recognised potential of the
  livestock sector, this potential remains largely
  unexploited due to constraints such as
• Recurrent droughts leading to massive losses in
  livestock.
• Lack of reliable markets.
• High costs of inputs and veterinary services.
• The high potential for exports from livestock and
  livestock products remains unexploited due
• Inadequate capacity in standardisation and
  quality control
• Inadequate processing capacity

24
Other major agricultural policies

• Kenya Vision 2030
• Strategy for Revitalizing Agriculture
• Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and
  Employment Creation
• Sessional paper No. 4 of 1981 on National Food
  Policy (revised in 1993)
• Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1986 on Economic
  Management for Renewed Growth
• Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1992 on Development and
  Employment in Kenya and previous National
  Development Plans.

25
Agricultural Law

• Currently Agricultural land regulated by the
  Agriculture Act Cap 318
• The objectives of the Act include to
• Promote and sustain agricultural production
• Provide for conservation of soil and its
  fertility
• Stimulate the development of agricultural land in
  accordance to good land husbandry and management

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Agricultural Law

• The Act controls agricultural operations up to
  the stipulation of what crops and livestock
  species are to be produced in specific areas.
• Act empowers the Minister to
• Make orders for proper management of land
• Cause compulsory acquisition of agricultural land
  not properly managed
• Make Rules regarding the conservation of soil or
  the prevention of adverse effeccts of soil
  erosion

27
Agricultural Law

• The Act contemplates the promulgation of land
  development orders and schemes in circumstances
  considered necessary for proper husbandry.
• Regulations made under the provisons of the Act
  proceed by way of prohibitions regarding land
  usage and practices inconsistent with the
  objective of good husbandry

28
Other Laws

• Other laws impacting on agricultural production
  include
• Water Act 2002
• Forest Act 2005
• EMCA 1999
• Land Control Act Cap 302
• Physical Planning Act 1996

29
Land Tenure

• Defines ownership of land.
• Represents the rights of people to own, use and
  control land and its resources.
• Ownership of land often interferes with its use
  as an agricultural asset.
• Use of land is an economic activity while control
  is political.
• Rights of ownership and use of land involve
  emotions.
• Thus people often guard their land jealously
  whether it is currently exploited or not.

30
Land Tenure

• Some people are landless while others own
  disproportionately large amounts of land.
• Others own land have no intention of farming
  while many who wish to farm have no access to
  land.
• The landowners may exploit the landless by unfair
  tenancy arrangements that may demand products or
  profits from land-use.

31
Traditional Land Tenure Systems

• In the traditional set up members of a family, a
  village or a clan communally own the land.
• Under communal land tenure, the individual has
  usufruct right on any vacant land after
  consulting the head of the community who holds
  the land in trust for the community.
• The individual cannot dispose of the land by
  outright sale.
• Possession of the land can only be confirmed when
  the individual physically occupies the land.
• If vacated for some years, another person may
  take it up with the consent of the village chief
  or head of the family

32
Traditional Land Tenure Systems

• The tendency of family land to be shared among
  surviving children of a deceased parent leads to
  fragmentation and scattering of plots of land for
  the offspring.
• Holdings become too small for economic
  exploitation and mechanization.
• Some of the inheritors may hold on to the land by
  right even if they have no interest in farming.
• This denies the enterprising farmer of the use of
  land and therefore is counterproductive.

33
Traditional Land Tenure Systems

• The biggest evil of the traditional tenure system
  is that it denies willing farmers of good
  farmland.
• In many cases, a few powerful families control
  large tracts of land while a majority of the
  people remain landless and serve as labourers or
  tenants.
• The landowners sometimes operate as absentee
  farmers by hiring the landless villagers as
  labour or by practicing sharecropping in which
  the landless worker utilizes the land and
  receives an agreed proportion of the proceeds.

34
Land Reform

• Many governments try to reform the land tenure
  system in order to
• Provide land for the landless
• Prevent the landless exploitation by the
  land-owning classes.
• However, land reform is an explosive political
  problem
• Landowners will not give up their land without
  resistance.
• They often represent the wealthy or the
  traditional authority and they can make the work
  of land reformers very difficult.
• Very often, a benevolent dictator, the military
  or a new social reformer is needed in order to
  achieve land reform.

35
Land Reform

• Farm-settlement schemes are sometimes used as a
  method of land reform.
• They involve acquisition and distribution of
  large tracts of land among a group of people who
  would otherwise be unable to find land.
• The organizers usually provide other inputs such
  as credit, mechanization equipment and technical
  information through an extension service.
• The schemes are required not only to provide
  employment for young school leavers, but also to
  improve agricultural supplies to the country.
• Technological innovations in agriculture can be
  brought to the farmers and tested in such schemes.

36
Constraints to Agricultural Production

• Inadequate rural infrastructure including poor
  rural roads and transport system.
• High dependence on rain-fed agriculture.
• Inadequate input application.
• Inaccessibility to credit for smallholder farmers
  especially women.
• Limited application of agricultural research
  findings because of inadequate extension
  activities and support staff.
• Low budgetary provision for the agricultural
  sector.

37
Constraints to Agricultural Production

• Cultural constraints
• Related to gender discrimination in ownership,
  transfer and usage of land
• perceived ethnic exclusion
• traditional inheritance practices leading to land
  fragmentation.
• Poor co-ordination of major actors in the sector
  e.g. infrastructure development, water, lands and
  settlements and poor co-ordination with Ministry
  of Agriculture, Ministry of Livestock Development
  and Marketing.