An Economic Evaluation Of The Role Of Land And Livestock Dynamics In Livelihood Diversification In Baringo County, Kenya

Abstract

Land in the rangelands of Kenya has been subdivided since 1968 following legislation for privat-ization with the aim of improving productivity, tenure security and reducing land degradation. This transformation has reduced transhumance among pastoralists who were previously nomadic. The change in land tenure institutions and property rights raises a critical concern on the future of the traditional pastoral system in Kenya. Pastoral communities continue to face a mixture of socio-economic and environmental challenges such as land degradation, climate change, land use change, urbanization, population increase and resource conflict. Climate variability comes with erratic rains, prolonged droughts and increased incidences of livestock diseases. These challenges undermine the sustainability of pastoralism as a main source of livelihood for households in the drylands. As a result, people in the drylands are slowly transforming to an agro-pastoral system. The government of Kenya and other stakeholders through the Kenya National Livestock Policy 2008 promised to support the pastoral economy to minimize vulnerability to droughts and con-flicts. As a result, households through the help of non-governmental organizations, County and national government have embraced alternative income generating activities (IGAs). Livelihood diversification is not a new phenomenon in pastoral areas. Most livelihood enterprises have been in existence among pastoral communities. However, there are renewed efforts geared towards commercialization of fodder, honey, livestock and other enterprises. The calls for the adoption and intensification of these livelihood enterprises have been happening without empirical evidence on the influence of recent change in land ownership and livestock production systems on household choice of enterprises. This study was conducted to characterize the change in land tenure, size and livestock population and species, and pastoral livelihoods. It also analyzed the effect of land tenure and other socio-economic factors on the type of livelihood diversification. Further, the effect of xi change in livestock population and species on the choice of livelihood enterprise was analyzed. Lastly, the economic returns of these enterprises were estimated. A household survey was con-ducted on 221 randomly selected pastoral and agro-pastoral households from two wards in Baringo County. Focus group discussion and household survey were used to obtain data. Descriptive sta-tistics, binary logit and a multivariate probit were used to analyze data. It is evident that the land tenure is changing from communal ownership towards private ownership. However, land adjudi-cation has not been completed; only 7% of the households had title deeds by the end of the year 2017. Households are stocking more goats than cattle, further there is a rise in the number of households pursuing poultry farming. Households depend on an average of three livelihood strat-egies up to a maximum of eight. Land tenure, land size, tropical livestock units, use of enclosures and practicing pastoralism have a positive influence on the choice of on-farm diversification strat-egies. The multivariate probit results showed that species diversity and decline in tropical livestock units had an implication on choice of fodder farming and waged labour. Additionally, the estimates from the gross margin analysis showed that bee keeping, livestock production, fodder and food crop farming are all viable enterprises. The study recommends linkage of dryland farmers to input and output markets to enable them to access drought tolerant crop varieties in order to reduce losses during drought and obtain better prices for their products. There is also need to settle land tenure issues to encourage farmers to invest in alternative on-farm enterprises and claim exclusive rights to economic returns from their enterprises. Further, upscaling extension services is important in improving the uptake of on-farm enterprises such as fodder farming and food crop production that require specialized technical skills. Keywords: Land, livestock, livelihood enterprises, diversification.