US-Kenya Dissertation Enhancement: From Pattern to Process in Land Use Change: Land Reform and Agricultural Intensification in Meru

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

9912067 This dissertation enhancement grant supports a US graduate student, Mr. Thomas Smucker, working under the guidance of Professor David Campbell, of the Department of Geography at Michigan State University, to conduct a study of the importance of land tenure security to agricultural intensification in Meru, Kenya. Many parts of rural Africa are undergoing rapid political, environmental, and economic changes which are affecting land ownership and usage patterns. Land titling tends to occur first in the relatively wetter margins of semi-arid lands, which pushes subsistence production systems into increasingly marginal lands. The intersections of these various dimensions of marginality create opportunities--and barriers--for agricultural intensification, and they also provide a framework for analyzing current patterns of land use change. In Kenya, initial expansion of cash crop production began in Meru before governmental land demarcation. Land titling further accelerated the integration of most of the highlands of Meru into a monetary economy. As a result of population growth and the resulting pressure on highland resources, landless or land-poor farmers have begun a downslope migration into the semi-arid lands of Meru, where they are in competition with the local Tharaku-Meru inhabitants. Using a political ecology framework, which views human-environment interactions as structured by power relations in society, Mr. Smucker will explore the current phase of land titling in Meru, its impact on the broader land tenure security system, and its implications for investment in landscape capital to support agricultural intensification. The study will be conducted at three lower midland sites representing various stages of land titling. Project results are expected to show the relationship between patterns of agricultural intensification and the complex social processes which underlie the emergence of contemporary patterns of land use change. Dr. Robin Reid, at Kenya's International Livestock Research Institute, and Dr. Edna Wangui, of the Department of Geography at Kenyatta University, will provide guidance on this project to Mr. Smucker. The results are expected to increase the current knowledge about the social driving forces of land use change, and will be of value to geographers, conservationists, and policy makers. This project will also support an international research experience very early in the career of an outstanding graduate student. This project is being jointly funded by the Division of International Programs and the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.