Socio-economic issues in rural afforestation in Kenya

Abstract

Since Kenya was declared a British Colony in 1895, land use and land tenure have undergone rapid evolution from varied traditional African communal systems into freehold commercialised or semi-commercialised systems. Forests and trees in private lands have also undergone a revolutionary history within the period from being an enemy of traditional African cultivators and pastoralists into an integral part of land use systems of modern Kenya. Agrarian development, mostly due to external and internal demands during and after the colonial era, was at the expense of forests and natural vegetation. The process was essential because of the competitive nature of trees and agricultural crops and pasture. This inherently was with the full backing of land use and labour policies and preceded mass tree planting by almost three decades. Farm forestry and agrarian systems in the African sector are functions of biophysical factors, population density, infrastructural development, economic scarcity and social values within the rural and household socio-econom ic context. Within a short period, smallholder farm forestry has shown impressive developments which only differ by degree across the country, mostly on the biophysical limitations. In ASAL areas, due to the moisture deficit for favourable tree growth and survival, mass tree growing beyond settled homesteads is uneconomical within the existing conditions as compared to medium and high potential zones. Rural land use changes are driven largely by demand forces often outside the agricultural and forestry sector. Unless forestry assumes econom ic scarcity or high social value, trees will be replaced by higher value land use systems or use of scarce resources for trees will not be justifiable beyond subsistence level. Depending on local demand forces and socio-economic status, Cost-Benefit techniques indicate that farm forestry is an efficient land use within existing resource limitations and in most areas resource mobility between various competing land use systems is shifting in a continuum. The dynamism between trees and other land uses in general favours the high value systems in terms of returns to the invested resources and the prevailing general economic and political conditions. The promotion and approach to rural tree growing by farmers has changed over the period. It has been farmer initiated activity to serve the households' perceived socio-econom ic needs with little or no external support. But with recent environmental awareness and an increasing push for tree planting as a solution to the environmental dilemma facing many rural areas, farmers have been urged to plant more trees irrespective of their local socio-economic importance to the land owners. The economic and social benefits from farm forestry resources have often been exaggerated to boost the morale of rural forestry development agents which at the same time could raise unattainable expectations among the farmers. The individualisation of land ownership set a precedent where communal ownership was weakened and individual property ownership has become entrenched in Kenyan society. Group or communal activities are more appealing in some projects such as schools, dams, health centres and roads. These facilities are rarely provided cost-effectively by individuals and in many cases benefits are indivisible. Large scale seedling production may not be economically feasible on communal or group efforts due to inherent organisational inefficiencies and is made worse in the ASAL where biophysical conditions make returns from such investments low despite its conceptual appeal and cost-effective in provision of extension support services. Approaches which modify the traditional forestry systems, to benefit farmers within the existing household socio-econom ic context through participatory programmes and macro-reforms, to improve economic viability of forestry activities are more likely to be adopted than the current subsidised and often objectively contradictory strategies.