Effects of Land Subdivision on Sustainable Livestock Production in Mbirikani Ward, Kajiado County, Kenya.

Abstract

Rural impoverished people around the world rely largely on cattle for their livelihood, which also makes up around 25% of all agricultural trade worldwide. Most studies on the topic have concentrated on land subdivision in the context of crop farming agriculture hence livestock continue to receive little attention. In the few available studies on the subject, none of the studies have been localized to take in account of the unique challenges facing the country. Kajiado County being a peri-urban pastoral county presents a unique problem which academic intervention and urgent solutions. Thus, there exists a need to examine how sustainable livestock production is affected by land subdivision in the context of Kenyan pastoral lands. This study, therefore, hypothesised that land subdivision has a negative significant effect on sustainable livestock production in Mbirikani Ward in Kajiado County, Kenya. The study set out to meet four specific objectives using a descriptive survey methodology utilizing the mixed strategy approach. Collection and evaluation of data included qualitative as well as quantitative techniques. The study administered semi-structured questionnaires to 56 and conducted one semi-structured key informant interview. The study established the need for individual land ownership, urban development, and land use change to other competing uses as the main driving factors of land subdivision in Mbirikani. Further, the research determined that diminishing land sizes because of land subdivision led to inter alia decline of the general amount of animals per household, decreasing sales in livestock and livestock-related goods and services, poor pasture management, land, and environmental degradation, and poor livestock marketing structures. In addition, these study findings indicated that residents coped with land subdivision by diversifying income sources, changing to other land uses and increasing the stocking density among other ways. However, to redress the problem the study recommended among others the creation of a land use and physical development plan with a local zoning standard providing minimum land holding, stocking rate and land use zoning, as well as a land consolidation plan for the subdivided plots which are economically unviable and marketing structure. The results feel the theoretical gap of contextualizing of the implication of land subdivision to sustainable livestock production.