Kenya Land Redistribution Experience: The million acre settlement scheme

1. Kenya Land Redistribution Experience: The million acre settlement scheme Karuti Kanyinga Institute for Development Studies University of Nairobi

2. Outline of presentation • Introduction: land questions and policies in Africa • The land question in Kenya • land alienation and Mau Mau peasant rebellion • Land redistribution • One million acre settlement scheme and outcome • Beneficiaries and implementation • Current land re-distribution issues • Conclusion • Lessons learnt

3. Introduction • Resurgence of the land question in policy debates in Africa • Land as an event around which major events are revolving • Reasons • Land questions embedded in the entire structure of agrarian societies • New investment patterns

4. The land question in Kenya • Subject: Issues of redistribution, restitution and settling historical grievances • Origins • Alienation of land for settler economy • Imposition of English property law (title) • Land tenure reforms

5. Land alienation and peasant rebellion • Establishment of the colonial state led to expropriation of land for settler economy • Legal framework and force used to secure land • Creation of Crown land • Dual system of land tenure - scheduled areas (White Highlands) and ‘native reserves’ • Law used to generate labor force

6. Alienation cont… • Native reserves features • congested and lacked productive potential • foreclosed frontiers • Meant for each ethnic group • Caused out-migration to the highlands • White Highlands • High potential • Agricultural institutions in place

7. Mau Mau peasant rebellion • landlessness and oppression main factor • Squatters in the highlands discontented and dissatisfied • Peasants in the reserves impoverished and congested • Colonial state became more oppressive in search of labour and in need to stop unrest • Mau Mau arose as a land and freedom army • Colonial administration as the enemy • Land redistribution as the goal

8. Land redistribution • Government saw the problem as racial structure of land ownership • Introduced reforms to favor prosperous Africans • Formed Land Development and Settlement Board without involving African political leadership • First resettlement involved yeomen and peasant farmers • Settlers were favored in the negotiations that followed • Settlers dominated conception and implementation

9. One million acre schem • Meant to address landlessness • 1m acres to settle 35,000 families and a few assisted farmers • Settlers given attractive package • Government was central in implementation of the scheme

10. One million cont… • The resettlement effort was ethnicised • Some elites had acquired but not paid • Scheme failed to address land hunger • Racial structure was altered • Economic structure remained intact – new elites acquired large holdings • Large farms (elite farms) under-utilised

11. Current debates • Politicised land re-distribution (political patronage in allocations) • Ethnicization of redistribution efforts • Reduced interests in settlement schemes • Inter-ethnic conflicts constraining democratization of the society

12. National land policy • Produced in 2006 following a long period of consultations • Key features • People as owners of land • Establishment of a legal framework to address re-distribution, restitution, and resettlement of squatters • Redistribution to address landlessness • Establishment of a national land commission and a land bank

13. Conclusions and key lessons • Redistribution efforts aimed at addressing a political problem • Addressing landlessness has not been a major focus • More concern with economic aspects than socio-political • Political and economic elites favored by government redistribution efforts

14. Some lessons • Markets do not address landlessness • Markets evolve skewed structure of land ownership • Landlessness is both a political and an economic problems • Requires political as well as technical and administrative solutions • But political considerations should not override other considerations • A clear national policy – stemming from a constitutional framework – is a requisite