Land Fragmentation and Food Security in Ugunja Sub-County, Siaya County, Kenya

Abstract

Globally, land tenure comes in different methods such as inheritance, renting, purchasing and land being offered as gift. Such practices have so far encouraged land fragmentation leading to small holdings which are uneconomical in terms of land use practices resulting into low yields. Such low food productions from small holdings in Ugunja coupled with poor food access from other sub-counties cannot sustain households up to the next harvest hence the problem of severe perennial famine which is an indicator of food insecurity.

The broad objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between land fragmentation and food security in Ugunja Sub-county, Siaya County. The study was guided by the specific objectives as follows; to determine causes of land fragmentation, to evaluate the effects of land fragmentation on crop farming and livestock production and to assess attitude of farmers towards land fragmentation on food production. The study aimed at finding out challenges of small holder farmers on land fragmentation and came up with strategies and policies that promote sustainable land use. The study was anchored on Schultz inverse relationship theory on land holding sizes and productivity that also helped to develop the conceptual framework.

The study adopted descriptive research designs with both qualitative and quantitative approaches majoring on field observation, purposively interviewing Land and Agriculture Ministry officials and households clustered in their respective locations through questionnaires. This was done to make the researcher be in full contact with the study area and the respondents for collection of ample data. The target population of the study was 21,150 households, from which 378 households were obtained as the study sample size. The data collected was cross tabulated by employing a statistical package for Social Science (SPSS version 19) that generated both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The major findings were as follows; most lands in the area were under ancestral tenure at 66.8%, land inheritance is the main cause of land fragmentation at 68.3%, buying at 26.3%, leasing at 2.7% and lastly land offered as a gift at 1.5%.The second findings were as follows fragmented plots results into low farm acreages which at times are scattered leading to low food production. However, the last finding on farmers attitude indicated that majority of farmers at 67% oppose land fragmentation and only 33% have positive attitude towards land fragmentation. and are able to maximize food production through biotechnological approaches. The study further concluded that small acreages leads to low yields as analysed by chi-square test on farm sizes versus crop yields(x²=1.16@d.f=2,p=0.05).When Rank correlation coefficient of farm sizes versus number of livestock was analysed a strong positive  relationship(R=0.99) was established, meaning reduced farm sizes leads to reduced livestock. The study recommends; government policy makers should review settlement policy plans and come up with policies that encourage land consolidation in order to promote food production through modern agricultural practices. Secondly, sensitization strategies for family planning be done to reduce population pressure on the available land. Lastly, agriculture stakeholders to offer loans and incentives to help boost production.