Towards Sustainable Agribusiness and Food Security in Kenya

Population and climate change in Kenya is exerting pressure on the agricultural production in a country juxtaposed by diminishing and deteriorating conditions of arable land. Land segmentations and subdivision is posing a threat to food security in Kenya and Africa as a continent. While the damage of land subdivision cannot be reversed in Kenya due to the nature of land tenure system, something must be done to guarantee present and future food security in the country. This paper introduces the land use consolidation model in which farmers in the same geographical proximity exercises production of a common produce based on their ecological comparative advantage. The essence of this model is to ensure that farmers benefit from economies of scale. The assumption is; small scale farmers, in the same proximity and producing similar products, ideally act as large scale farmers. In this land consolidation model, farmers can optimize on producing products which they have an absolute advantage and trade on what they have production inefficiency. Intra counties trade could be facilitated by the revival of the railway system whose capacity has been unheeded. In this scenario, water harvesting becomes economical in guarantying a complete cycle of farm produces through irrigation. It’s therefore imperative that the government embarks on massive water harvesting through dams to complement rain fed agriculture and hence ensure a continuous cycle of farm products for consumption and raw materials for agro processing industries in value addition. The objective of this is to ensure that there is constant supply of agricultural products in the country to combat the perennial food insecurity and spur industrialization in the country.