Transcript Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

LECTURE II
Agricultural Development
policy, Law and Land
Tenure
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
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%
Introduction
 The
growth after 2000 was spurred by
the NARC Government’s 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Sector Targets

Assuming conducive external environment
and support from enabling sectors targets to
be achieved by 2015 include:
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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
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
Agricultural Policy

Agricultural policy in Kenya revolves around
the main goals of
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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.
Agricultural Policy

The key areas of policy concern, therefore,
include:
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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
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.
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
Key Policy Concerns
 Limited
high potential agricultural land
and over-reliance on rain fed agriculture
 Only
about 17% of the country’s 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.
Key Policy Concerns

Limited diversification of Agricultural
production
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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.
Key Policy Concerns

Poor and inadequate rural infrastructure
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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
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There is inadequate demand driven research.
There is ineffective extension and delivery system
of research findings.
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.
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
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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:
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Inadequate capacity in standardisation and quality
control
Inadequate processing capacity
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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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
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.
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.
Land Reform

Many governments try to reform the land tenure
system in order to:
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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.
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.
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.
Constraints to Agricultural Production
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Cultural constraints:
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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.