As Kenya and most of sub-Saharan Africa grapples with the perennial problem of food shortage, one of the factors to be carefully considered is the how land is put into use. It is important to find out how best to put into use the available land, so that we can reap the best fruits from it. Subsaharan Africa and Africa in general has varying weather and climatical patterns which greatly influences how the land in each area is i.e. whether its is desert, semi-desert, equatorial forests, savanna etc.
Take Kenya for example; The country has arable land, savanna grasslands (popular with wildlife and tourism), semi arid (from which we hope some oil will be hit soon), desert conditions and equatorial forests like the Mt. Elgon, the Aberdares and Mt. Kenya forests just to name a few. In the last 7 years or so has seen a steady rise in the construction industry. While tourism and Agriculture has had their cyclical moments, in general the construction industry has been growing steadily, thanks to a rising middle class in Kenya, who have in-turn given rise to an increasing demand on housing especially in major urban centers. Even in towns that 10 years ago were not so much considered for residential or even commercial developments, now we have seen prices of properties in these areas rise tremendously. Ofcourse this is an important development in our economy. However, without proper planning, we will end up with scenario like Nairobi, which was initially planned for only 250,000 people but is now residence to about 3 million people if not more; and we all know the problems that have come with this kind of situation.
To get to the point, there are major housing projects underway at the moment, e.g Migaa and Tatu City in Kiambu. This has essentially been motivated by the death of the coffee industry in the area which was a great income earner for residents of the area since independence. At the moment, these areas are being cleared of the coffee bushes to make way for the classy residential houses. This has even been made better by the continued effort by the government to pave roads going into these areas. However, this area has very good arable land unlike much of the so called Kapiti plains that stretches from Thika along the eastern by-pass all the way to Athi River and Kajiado. It therefore seems to me as bad planning to be allowing development of housing projects on a large scale on arable land, while we still have non-arable land near the city on which such projects should be undertaken. Most will argue that the Uasin Gishu district in the Rift Valley has got enough arable land to feed the entire country, but if that is so, why do we still experience hunger every two years? Furthermore, at the rate of population growth that we are experiencing, it is not very hard to see the population hit 60 million in the next 20 - 30 years. Will the available arable land still be enough food basket for the country?
