Land fragmentation is a common agricultural phenomenon in
many countries where a single large farm is subdivided into a large number of
separate small land plots. Land fragmentation has been cited as one of the
major causes of food insecurity in Kenya. This citation may be due to the fact
that land fragmentation is rampant in most high agricultural potential areas in
Kenya, mainly due to increasing population pressure, but there is limited
evidence from empirical studies. This chapter is based on a study that was
carried out to evaluate the impact of land fragmentation on food security in
three agro-ecological zones (AEZs) of Embu County in Kenya from January to
November 2016. The study used data collected from 384 farm households that were
randomly selected from three AEZs in Embu County, using the 4-stage cluster
sampling method. The AEZs were the Sunflower-Cotton Zone, the Coffee Zone and
the Tea Zone, based on the official AEZs classification system in Kenya. The
household caloric acquisition method was used to compute a household food
security index (HFSI) that was used to measure the household food security
status. HFSI < 1 indicates food insecurity, and HFSI ≥ 1 indicates food
security based on daily calorie requirements. The effect of farm size on food
security was evaluated using the Binary Logit Regression method. The results
showed that the average number of people in a household was 3.73 in the Tea
Zone, 3.59 in the Coffee Zone and 3.93 in the Sunflower Zone, and that farm
size had a positive and significant effect on food security in the Sunflower
(P=.029) and Tea zones (P=.007), but not in the Coffee Zone (P=.365). Further,
it was found that the minimum farm size that could ensure the attainment of the
minimum (cut-off) point for household food security (HFSI = 1) was above 2 ha
in the Sunflower Zone and 0.5 ha in the Tea Zone. The study concluded that farm
size has a positive impact on household food security in the study area. Based
on the study findings, it is recommended that further fragmentation of farms
below 0.5 ha in the Coffee and Tea zones and 2 ha in the Sunflower Zone should
be discouraged to ensure sustainable food security in the study area. For the
farms that are already below the minimum cut-off size for food security,
measures to increase these farms’ productivity so that they can support more
people per ha should be devised and implemented. This study focused on only
three agro-ecological zones within Embu County; therefore, future research
should expand the geographical scope to include other counties and
agro-ecological zones in Kenya to more comprehensively evaluate the effects of
land fragmentation on food security.
Author(s) Details
Samuel Njiri Ndirangu
Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Embu, Kenya.
Stephen G. Mbogoh
Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nairobi, Kenya.
O. L. E. Mbatia
Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Please see the book here :- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/nhstc/v8/6940
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