The Future of Smallholder Farming in Eastern Africa - Uganda ...

Social Capital and Sustainable Agriculture in Kenya’s Marginal Areas
1. Introduction
Agriculture has been and still is an important sector of the Kenyan economy. It
contributes about 26 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), accounts for 76 percent of
national employment, 60 percent of total export earnings and 45 percent of government
revenue. In the rural areas, where most of the population resides, about 80 percent of the
people derive their livelihood from agriculture, and the majority of the farmers are
smallholders. Their production accounts for about 70 percent of the total output and 50
percent of the gross marketed output (GoK 1997). Thus, agriculture is the engine of growth,
and it is the sector that provides impetus to any meaningful development effort.
However, about 80 percent of the total land area in Kenya is marginal for agricultural
production. Though these marginal lands are key areas for sustainability and biodiversity,
they face frequent food shortages, are ecologically vulnerable, receive irregular and low
amounts of rainfall, and suffer problems of environmental degradation such as soil erosion
and soil mining. Soil degradation is increasingly regarded as a major—if not, the most
threatening—environmental problem in developing countries. The main negative
consequence of soil degradation is on-farm decline of crop production. With rising
population densities, farmers are often caught in a Malthusian poverty trap, whereby their
land does not provide enough food to feed the number of people in the family. At the same
time, environmental degradation is increasing. Consequently, food availability and
accessibility for large population groups may be severely reduced in the near future (World
Bank 1992).
Nevertheless, these marginal areas can be made productive if farmers invest in their
land. Such investments include terracing, manure application, tree planting, among others, to
help conserve soil and water at both the community and farm household levels. These
conservation efforts contribute toward food security and other national objectives, notably
poverty alleviation and employment generation. Moreover, soil conservation also increases
the long-term sustainability of farming systems.
Evidence of this sustainability has been observed in some areas. In the 1950s, the
semi-arid Machakos District was a disaster area, as evidenced by soil erosion, low crop
productivity, and poverty. However, as Tiffen, Mortimore, and Gichuki (1994) point out,
today population has increased threefold but so has per capita output. Soil erosion has also
slowed significantly. Machakos District now boasts some of the best-terraced land. There are
other districts where conditions were similar to those in Machakos in the earlier periods, yet
they have not undergone the transformation that Machakos has. Some of these districts
include Taita-Taveta, Baringo, Kitui, Mbeere, lower parts of Keiyo District, and Tharaka.
This raises the question of why Machakos made it, while the other districts did not. Can the
"Machakos miracle" be induced on a large scale in other areas with similar conditions
Investments in soil conservation may be undertaken when sufficient returns are
expected, compared with the situation if no such investments were made. In addition and
more importantly, farmers will make investments when they are assured that they will reap
the benefits for a considerable period of time. These returns—in particular, monetary