• Previously viewed as taxing and demeaning, farming is now seen as a solution
Image: AGATHA NGOTHO
There aren't enough formal sector jobs for everyone looking for employment. The shortage of jobs has led to calls for the youth to get into the agriculture business, known in Kiswahili as kilimo biashara.
In commercial agriculture, farmers grow crops they harvest and sell for money. This is in contrast to subsistence agriculture, in which farmers grow food crops mostly for home consumption. In commercial agriculture, the farmer can grow crops or raise livestock that he or she does not consume just as long as there are willing buyers.
With the country's fast-growing population, there is a healthy demand for maize, wheat, vegetables, milk, meat, cereals, legumes and fruits. There is also a demand in the industrial sector for cotton, animal skins, pyrethrum, tobacco, barley, sunflower and coconuts, among other crops. Kenya is among the world's leading exporters of cut flowers, vegetables and fresh fruit, which points to big demand for those crops in international markets.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) states that agriculture accounts for 65 per cent of Kenya's exports, while employing 80 per cent of the rural population. Despite these impressive numbers, Kenya imports more food than it exports. Much of Kenya's food imports are from neighbouring countries, such as Tanzania and Uganda.
LACK OF OWNERSHIP
With such strong demand for agricultural products, the logical step is getting the large number of unemployed youth into farming for self-employment. There's one major problem, though: most youths do not own land on which to farm.
Land is the key input in any agricultural activity. Without land ownership, the youth depend on family land, in which they cannot make decisions on what crops to grow or livestock to keep. The lack of land ownership locks out the youth from accessing the loans they need to get into commercial agriculture.
In matters of land ownership, there's a lot of mistrust between elders and the youth. According to a Thompson Reuters investigation on the lack of land ownership among young people, elders fear that the youth will sell family land. Furthermore, there's the fear of the youth taking loans with land documents, then defaulting on payments, resulting in ancestral land getting lost to lending institutions.
Other factors include the lack of land titles in some parts of Kenya and a lack of knowledge on how to transfer land ownership. Many people find the process of transferring titles too long, tedious and expensive.
The problem of land ownership gets complicated by the already small pieces of land most rural families live in. In the wet, fertile highlands of Central Kenya, parts of the Rift Valley, Western Kenya, Nyanza and parts of the Coast, farms are too tiny to be subdivided any further.
The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) says continued land subdivision is among the reasons why crop yields are declining across Kenya. "Smaller parcels produce lower amounts of product and, therefore, have to be exploited with less downtime between crops. Soil nutrients are not given the chance to be restored naturally,” Kari reports on its website.
MOVING ELSEWHERE
Youth wanting to settle on land they can call their own are left with no option but to look elsewhere. As they don't have much money, the youth end up buying cheap plots in arid and semi-arid areas. Farming in such places would require heavy investment in irrigation, money the youth don't have.
John Babu, 35, is among young people moving away from their ancestral areas. A native of Taita Taveta county, Babu is originally from the highlands of the county. He is looking for Sh50,000 to buy a piece of land in the arid lowlands close to Voi town. A boda boda operator, Babu says many of his colleagues own land on which they are putting up homes. "I plan to sell my motorcycle for Sh70,000 next month," Babu says. "I will buy the plot with Sh50,000 then use the balance of Sh20,000 to place a deposit for a new motorcycle."
Taxi driver Mwasingo Mwashimba bought a quarter-acre piece of land in Taveta subcounty. Mwashimba, who comes from another part of the county, says he spent Sh40,000 on the plot because he is looking for a place to build a house.
Taveta is well known for irrigated farming due to the presence of springs bubbling out of the volcanic rocks. "I'm talking to a landowner in one of the irrigation schemes so I can lease a plot there for a year," Mwashimba says. "There is water, I can grow maize even if the rains fail."
Like Mwashimba, youth interested in commercial farming are turning to short-term leases to fulfil their aspirations. Leasing is cheaper than buying land, but leasing rates vary around Kenya.
Mwashimba expects to pay Sh6,000 a year for a quarter of an acre of irrigated land. Land leasing is also a flexible option for new farmers getting into agribusiness for the first time. Buying land implies a long-term commitment to a particular location.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Young farmers leasing agricultural land will naturally want to maximise their earnings, but this could harm the environment. Grace Mwaura, a rural livelihoods expert, notes in a 2019 paper that the leasing of land limits farming practices to only those offering high returns in the shortest time possible.
"As educated youth increasingly find themselves unemployed, the idea that agriculture, despite being previously viewed as a demeaning and labour-intensive occupation, could enable them to earn an immediate income, becomes plausible," she wrote. Short-term leases drive farmers into intensive agricultural activity, which damages the land.
The demand for rural land is pushing up prices, which encourages landowners to sell in bits. Often, families sell pieces of their land to meet an urgent need for cash, such as school fees and medical bills. The haphazard subdivision and selling of land eventually leave families with just the plot around the family house. Deep poverty is the inevitable consequence.