Urban-rural Linkages: Covid-19 Impacts on Soko Mjinga Market Center and Rural Smallholder Communities in Kinale Ward, Kiambu County.

Abstract

Market Centers in rural areas are the first point of interaction between urban and rural areas. They are the starting point of the food supply chain as they act as the urban support base for rural development. Since the emergence of COVID-19, the global markets and all vulnerable people in the urban and rural communities have encountered immense challenges due to the government-led response measures to the pandemic. This study sets out to explore the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on small market centres and the rural smallholder communities in their hinterland and their implications on urban-rural linkages, which is an area that has received limited attention, and it is thus a gap in knowledge that the research aims to address. The research setting of Soko Mjinga Market Centre and the land uses in its rural hinterland targeted all small holder farmers in the four locations of Kinale Ward. The study which used a cross-sectional design drew its sample from the traders who buy from the farmers, the drivers who transport food to different parts of the country and key informants that included the chiefs, the agricultural officer, the market representative and the county physical planner. The study conducted two focus group discussions with five leaders and it administered face-to-face interviews drawn from a simple random selection of ten households from each of the four locations, a convenience sample selection of ten drivers targeting their different destinations and a purposive sample of five key informants. The main type of rural land use in Kinale ward was agriculture where crop production and dairy farming were practiced. Crops planted were mainly kales, spinach, cabbage, carrots and Irish potatoes. Forestry was the second largest form of agricultural land use, where farmers herd their cattle in the forest. The key findings of the research show that there was no significant change in the type of agricultural land use due to Covid-19. However, the quantity of the farm produce to the market centre was greatly reduced during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study equally observed that the agricultural land in Kinale and Magumu Wards was diminishing through uncontrolled land subdivision in the settlement scheme, which poses a threat to local food production and national food security at large. Covid-19 led to far-reaching negative impacts such as inaccessibility and closure of the market, reduction in demand and supply, disruption in the food chain, reduced interaction between buyers and sellers, low prices for agricultural produce, increased number of brokers and increased food waste. There was however improved sanitation and an improvement of household income when revenue collection was relaxed. Covid-19 impacted on the smallholder farmers in different ways such as decreased farm-based income due to low quantities and low sale prices for agricultural produce. For off-farm income, it was mainly due to lack of opportunities to work and lack of transport opportunities to access work. Due to the travel restrictions, it was difficult for the farmers to access the over-shot prices of farm inputs. The Covid-19 negative implications on urban rural linkages was observed through transportation distortions and disruptions to the flow of food and people to various parts of the country. The lockdowns and movement restrictions by closure of county boundaries impeded the rural communities from accessing hospitals and vital medicines. The restrictions temporarily introduced weak linkages from the urban markets to the rural markets. The linkage was however stronger from the rural markets to the urban markets because of the much-needed food supply. This study recommends the formulation of an all-inclusive plan for a more sustainable Soko Mjinga market centre and its rebranding to refrain from the name “Mjinga” which connotes ‘fool’, ‘stupid’, ‘uneducated’ and ‘illiterate’. The study equally recommends the formation and registration of a smallholders’ savings and credit cooperative society; and that the smallholder farmers be enlightened on different ways of doing online marketing using smartphones, radios and televisions. The study further suggests more broader policy, legislative, governance and theory-oriented interventions to policymakers and planners in order to mitigate the negative impacts on small market centres and rural smallholder communities so as to build their resilience against future pandemics.