Major issues of smallholder land policy: past trends and current practices in Kenya

Abstract

The official government strategy on land policy in Kenya aims to achieve optimum utilization and equitable distribution of land for the country's rapidly increasing population. This strategy has been pursued with programmes to transform customary tenure structures to statutory freehold through land adjudication and registration for the issuance of individual titles. This article examines the landholding structure in the smallholder sector in Kenya. It analyses how interests in land in those areas are acquired, held and transferred.

Among the smallholders in Kenya, the landholding system is still largely custom driven. Statutory stipulations are largely ignored as being irrelevant and bureaucratic. For the proper implementation of any land policy based on statutes, the socio-economic circumstances of smallholders must first be analysed and understood in order to make the law responsive to their aspirations.