Influence of Land Sub-division on household Food security in Nyamira North Sub County, Kenya

Abstract

Land is a crucial resource that human beings depend on for survival. However, in the last three decades, farm sizes held by households in many parts of Kenya have diminished to less than an acre as a result of successive land sub-division leading to heightened households food insecurity. With all these unfolding, households that have traditionally relied on their farms for food will have to devise mechanisms to ensure their food security since without food life would be impossible. Thus, this study sought to investigate how land sub-division has influenced food security at the household level in Nyamira North Sub County. Specifically, the study sought to analyze the social meaning of land and how it influences land sub-division, assess the influence of land sub-division on household food survival strategies and analyze the influence of household food survival strategies on social life within households in Nyamira North Sub County. The study was anchored on the Social Construction Theory and Population Pressure Theory. The embedded variant of mixed methods research design was utilized. Stratified sampling technique was used to draw a sample of 379 respondents from a target population of 37965 households whilst purposive sampling procedure was adopted to draw participants for focus group discussions and key informant interview. The methods of data collection were questionnaire, focus group discussions and key informant interview. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were the methods of data analysis. The study established that living space, continuity of generation, collective identity and wellbeing, fulfillment of social norms and source of prestige are the common social meanings of land but they have minimal influence on land sub-division as opposed to need for independence and living, poverty and lack of government policy on land sub-division. The study established that households have adopted various food survival strategy including exclusive purchase of food from markets (31%), exclusive farming (7%), combined farming and purchasing of food from the market (57%) and farming on leased land to foster household food security (5%). The study also established that food survival strategies adopted by households have led to moral decay, change of gender roles in household food provision, breakdown of families, and weakening of extended family ties. The study concludes that land sub-division is greatly influenced by need for independence and living, poverty and lack of government policy on land sub-division rather than social meanings of land. The study also concludes that although land sizes have declined tremendously households have not ceased from producing food with supplement from the market implying that wherever there is change in a social system, people don’t discard their traditional ways of life easily. Further, the study concludes that the household food survival strategies have resulted in unintended outcomes on social behaviors and social change in households including moral decay, change of gender roles in household food provision, breakdown of families, and weakening of extended family ties. The study recommends that there is a need for alternative livelihoods sources, especially businesses to help people eke out a living outside land to reduce the appetite for land, the national and county governments to cap the minimum sub-divisible land at an acre, and that local administration need to utilize community policing strategy to curb theft of food from farms so as to increase food production and consequently reduce the food purchased from market by households.