Africa’s Dividing Farmlands A Threat To Food Security

Africa’s Dividing Farmlands A Threat To Food Security 

See: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/09/africas-dividing-farmlands-a-threat-to-food-security/
NAIROBI, Sep 10 2014 (IPS) – When Kiprui Kibet pictures his future as a maize farmer in the fertile Uasin Gishu county in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, all he sees is the ever-decreasing plot of land that he has to farm on.
“I used to farm on 40 hectares but now I only have 0.8 hectares. My father had 10 sons and we all wanted to own a piece of the farmland. Subdivision … ate into the actual farmland,” Kibet tells IPS. “From 3,200 bags a harvest, now I only produce 20 bags, at times even less.”
Experts say that Africa’s extensive land subdivision is emerging as a significant threat to food security.

Statistics by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) show that a majority of Africa’s farmers now farm on less than one hectare of land.
According to FAO, in the last 10 years the land/person in agriculture ratio in Kenya declined from 0.264 to the current 0.219. Explained as a percentage, this means that the number of people with one hectare of agricultural land in Kenya decreased by 17 percent over the last decade.

See: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/09/africas-dividing-farmlands-a-threat-to-food-security/