1.0 Chapter 1 – Introduction
1.1 Background
Mwea Irrigation Scheme was established in 1958 as a resettlement scheme with the primary objective of resettling the landless and ex-detainees during the independence struggle. It is situated in Kirinyaga district, in Central province of Kenya about 100 kilometres from Nairobi. The scheme has a gazetted area of 30,350 acres, of which16,000 acres are used for rice production and rest of the scheme is used for settlement, public utilities, subsistence and horticultural crops farming. The scheme is served by two main rivers Nyamindi and Thiba rivers. The scheme has about 3000 farmers each working on an average of 4 acres piece of land (NIB website 2009).
The scheme was managed by the government through the National Irrigation board (NIB) until 1998. Land tenure was on tenancy basis where the NIB was the landlord and the farmers were the tenants. The landlord provided inputs, infrastructure, machinery and extension services while the tenant gave labour services at a cost determined by the landlord. The government had an elaborate structure and systems all the way from farming activities management, water management, financing arrangements, storage, processing and marketing. At the end of the harvest, the tenant surrendered all the crop to NIB and were provided with twelve sacks of un processed grain for their annual consumption. With no other incomes, the twelve sacks were the total incomes the farmers received annually which was expected to meet all their basic needs. Initially the tenants started as singles but they eventually started families and the twelve sacks were no longer sufficient for the feeding of the families. This resulted in families starving, malnutrition and poverty says a former tenant. (Kariuki, 2009).
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The rice mills were jointly owned between the farmers and the government through their cooperative society Mwea Rice Growers Cooperative Society However the marketing of the refined grain was done by the government.
There were many restrictive practices for example, tenants were not allowed to keep livestock, children were required to vacate the scheme when they attained 18years of age among other restrictions, during harvest period visitors were required to get permits to enter the scheme and this was ensured through barriers manned by administration police (Pambazuka, 2009).
The harvest season was a tense period with tenants working hard to take as much rice to their home stores as possible. This resulted in bribing of the administrative police in order to allow them take more harvests. In some instances, there were searches for crop in the farmers’ houses which resulted in the crop being seized and taken to the NIB stores and this was the height of humiliation for these tenants says Githuku Joseph a former tenant. Apparently some of these restrictive practices are still in force as per attached licence of Mr. peter Ndegwa. ( See Attachment1).
In the early 1990s signs of distress started to emerge culminating in 1996, at the expiry of the previous tenancy agreement, the tenants refused to sign new tenancy agreements and there were violent confrontations between the government forces and the tenants. First, on 4 June 1996, Hon Martha Karua and three others representing over 3,000 farmers at Mwea (almost 100% of farm families), rejected new tenancy agreements from their bosses at the government-run National Irrigation Board (Nation, 5 June 1996, p. 12).
The group claimed that Mwea farmers do not accept to be tenants any more and had a right to own the land. They ridiculed the new agreement’s terms which require farmers to deliver all rice, with the exception of a much reduced quantity of some ten bags per year, to the Irrigation Board. There were subsequent threats of eviction, but the tenants held firm in their claim to the land. There was developing a parallel market where owners failed to deliver crop and sold it in the local markets. Other women have at least been able to hold at bay some of the male violence. On 14 July 1996, some 300 women shouted and ululated at government officers who called in police to break up a rally held by opposition politicians in a sports stadium in Mwea. Women farmers crossed the road to a building site and gathered stones in their skirts and dumped them on the playing field. Young men hurled the stones at police (Waiguru, 1996).
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The insurgents drew media attention to their demands for titles deeds and payment arrears. Eventually in 1998, the farmers failed to deliver their harvest to the NIB stores and instead delivered it to their cooperative society. Unfortunately, the farmers’ cooperative had neither the resources nor the capacity to undertake all the work required to run the Scheme effectively. (Pepall, 2008)
Since then, Mwea has changed, there also emerged ‘out of scheme’ rice cultivation in stream and river valley bottoms which were formerly infested with reeds and papyrus vegetation. Prior to the farmer protests, rice growing outside the scheme was illegal as per NIB by laws (GOK 1967; Act 1967,ch 347; The People Daily, 2000).
Growing of rice in these niches marked the beginning of ‘jua kali’’or ‘’informal’’ rice system benefiting farmers outside the scheme directly. There are reports of crop diseases attacking the rice fields, pointing to reduced production and shortage. Farmers say production per acre has gone down to 10 bags compared to the average 25 bags. (Business Daily, 2009)
Maintaining the premise that the farmers boycott has had a profound positive impact in the lives of farmers, it is worthy noting that the economic potential for the scheme is far much under-utilized. In the current global food crisis, areas that are productive should be fully utilized and Mwea is one of the areas which can significantly boost food production if its potential is fully utilized.
1.2 Statement of the problem
Amid increased global food crisis and an estimated 10 millions starving in Kenyan population among other socio economic problems facing Kenyans today have a wakened a focus for utilization of food baskets and arable land in Kenya. Rice is believed to be the third most important grain after maize and wheat, and as the economy grows, the consumption has gone up (Business Daily, 2009).
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Mwea Irrigation scheme produces a large proportion of the rice produced in Kenya. After the exit of NIB in 1998, a casual observer would note several changes including increased infrastructure, increased populations, more financial institutions, more permanent houses among other social economic issues. However, the author holds the premise that this area can do better than this and contribute more nationally and locally for the benefit of all the stake holders.
This study will investigate the socio economic status of the rice farmers and strive to understand the issues that the farmers are faced with today. The results could become a starting point for those interested in helping the farmers improve their farming management for more yields. The research will possibly come up with practical suggestions on the way forward to improve on rice farming management which will in return lead to increased incomes and the subsequent improvement of standards of living in the scheme.
1.3 Objectives:
Main Objective;
a) To assess the current socio economic status of the rice farmers in Mwea irrigation scheme.
Specific objectives:
a) To identify the current production costs per acreage
b) To establish the current rice yields per acreage
c) To identify the rice markets and marketing channels
d) To identify the prices and pricing methods
e) To establish the household incomes and expenditures
f) To identify current challenges facing the farmers
1.4 Justification of the study
Since the farmers’ takeover of the rice farming, the social economic life in Mwea has definitely changed mainly for the better. There is noticeable freedom in the entire management of rice farming, increased availability of financial services, increased permanent houses and a lot of business activities, more new comers from other areas show an attraction of investors. However there are challenges in coordination of common resources such as water, research and marketing which have had a negative impact on yields and prices. Farming methods have also deteriorated although the incomes have increased largely because a large percentage of the money previously belonging to the government now goes to the farmers. Still rice farming and social economic life in Mwea is far from recording a level of improvement that is commensurate with the area’s potential.
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There are numerous studies done in Mwea as an irrigation scheme on issues such as water usage, water borne diseases like Malaria, food security, agribusiness among other issues. Specifically, a previous research by Egerton University (2002) did not addressed the way forward for the scheme in terms of better management of the scheme in the absence of the previous National Irrigation Board management. The nature of the scheme requires that farmers work together for the survival of rice farming and for individual farmers to leap maximum benefits. The farmers need a direction and initial hand holding so as to understand and appreciate the need to work together and how to deal with or overcome the complex situation that threatens their livelihoods and the social fabric that existed before. An understanding of the current status of the farmers would be of benefit to the farmers, other stakeholders including financial institutions, the government, nongovernmental organizations, researchers and other scholars, and could be used as a yard stick or point of reference.
1.5 Limitations
The limitations will include:
a) Funding of the proposal is limited to private contribution.
b) The data collection will also involve using different methods of data collection including individual interviews with opinion leaders who are not available most of the time
c) There is limited time to carry out the study.
2.0 Literature review
Mwea Irrigation Scheme is situated in Kirinyaga district, in Central province of Kenya. The Scheme is about 100 Km South East of Nairobi. Farming in the scheme started in 1956 and rice has been the predominant crop. The scheme has a gazetted area of 30,350 acres, a total of 16,000 acres has been developed for paddy production and the rest of the scheme is used for settlement, public utilities, subsistence and horticultural crops farming.
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The scheme is served by two main rivers, Nyamindi and Thiba Rivers. Irrigation water is abstracted from the rivers by gravity through the help of fixed intake gates, conveyed and distributed in the scheme via open channels. There is a link canal joining the two rivers which transfers water from Nyamindi to Thiba River which serves about 80% of the scheme. Land tenure is on 99 year lease hold basis.
2.1 Historical perspective
The Mwea Irrigation Scheme was established in the 1958 as a resettlement scheme with the primary objective of resettling the landless and ex-detainees during the independence struggle. Until 1998 when the NIB exited, the scheme was managed through a bilateral arrangement that had a farmer’s cooperative on one hand and the government on the other, working together.
In 1998, the rice farmers who are about 3,000 protested against the National Irrigation Board (NIB), a government body charged with the responsibility of overseeing the farm management, processing and marketing of rice in Kenya. They took over the rice industry and assumed the responsibility of growing and marketing of their own rice. The farmers’ grievances narrate Mwaniki (2002) a former tenant included:
a) Forced labor at minimal rates. Those whose allocated rice fields were not worked on would face withdrawal of their tenancy status and the fields transferred to other tenants.
b) Slave master type of experience where water guards and irrigation officers’ crisis crossed the rice fields supervising the farmers.
c) The farmers were not allowed to keep cattle or even chicken without the authority of the NIB management
d) Outdated, oppressive and discriminative colonial age legal system that dictated that women in the scheme, including the widowed cannot own land and once a child reaches 18 years of age, they were expected to leave the scheme
e) Farmers had to pay for the recurrent expenditures of the NIB through forced deductions from the income of the rice produce. The farmers estimated their annual contributions to NIB operational expenditures at 128 million shillings, most of which went to the salaries of its employees.
f) The farmers were not represented in the management of the scheme and were kept un informed on government policies, paddy prices or any decision that affected them.
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g) Farmers co owned the estimated five million-shilling rice mills with the NIB through their cooperative, yet the farmers never received dividends for the last five years prior to the take over of rice management. In January 2000, an attempt to take over the mills as well, were reportedly stopped by armed police.
h) Farmers were promised title deeds, a promise that was used to woe their votes each election year and were never effected; today they have 99 years lease holds. ( Mwaniki, 200)
Initially, the scheme management was taken over by Mwea Rice Farmer’s cooperative society (MRGM).
However, the farmers realized that they could not go it alone due to:
a) Unskilled personnel
b) Lack of finance
c) Lack of machinery for scheme maintenance.
d) Self interests and corruption ( Source: NIB Website)
During this brief period when the scheme was run by the cooperative, the infrastructure deteriorated.
2.2 Current status in the scheme
The scheme is being run by National Irrigation Board (NIB), and the farmers Water Users Association (WUA).
NIB is responsible of all the main infrastructure, water management in the main and secondary canals, making of cropping program and land administration in the scheme. WUA is responsible of water management in the tertiary unit, facility maintenance in the tertiary units except roads and farmers’ other payments. Marketing of rice is open for farmers to decide where to sell but the farmers society, the National Cereal and Produce Board, NCPB, are presently the main buyers. At the moment farmers do not have a stable credit provider since the farmer’s savings and credit society collapsed. Farmers in the meantime are making do with commercial banks and microfinance institutions where terms and conditions for loans are much worse that those offered during the era of the cooperative society the farmers are using small, but single pass hurlers, which can hardly separate broken grain from whole, making the quality of their rice low hence less competitive in the market. Land is now leased to the farmers for a period of 99 years. Farmers source for inputs and market their crops individually. In 2003, the farmers approached the government for assistance in the schemes’ management.
The farmers pay NIB a flat rate of Kshs 2,000.00 per acre for infrastructure maintenance and water management. At the beginning of each financial year, the scheme’s NIB management together with a farmers water users association (WUA) officials sits together and comes up with a cropping and maintenance programs which reflect the amount of money expected from the farmers. Scheme’s NIB management and WUA hold a monitoring and evaluation meeting once a month.
2.3 Previous studies
Achieng'(2000), a journalist from IPS has given an account of what she terms as farmers battle for their rights. Her accounts only explain the supposedly sequence of events that happened during the farmers’ hostile take over. She also tries to explain the state of affairs under NIB management. However her account is only informative of the status quo prior to the take over and the chronology of events leading to the revolution and has no solutions to help the scheme population make their lives better by leaping the benefits they were denied under the NIB management.
Another well studied area in Mwea is Malaria. Labatut, Jean-Michel in 2000 carried out a study on Livestock and Agro ecosystem Management for Community Based Integrated Malaria Control. This explains the link between health and ecosystems. Their report blames the farming methods in the scheme currently as part of the grief malaria problem in the area. Malaria is thought to have emerged as a virulent disease at the same time as the early practice of agriculture — about 7,000 years ago. Today, a project supported by the International Development Research Centre is taking a new look at the links between agriculture and malaria. The goal is to reduce the incidence of the disease. This research work has identified possible solutions which touch on the core issues facing Mwea which include improved water management as a strategy that could be effectively used to reduce the Malaria problem, other methods that can be effectively used to control mosquitoes.
A study carried out by Nguyo (2002) on Alleviating Poverty and Food Insecurity: The Case of Mwea Irrigation Scheme recognized Mwea irrigation scheme’s (MIS) pivotal role in the 1980’s when the cost of food import skyrocketed with respect to the value of the domestic currency and its expected impact on the agricultural economy now and in the future. The report has useful information on history, size of the scheme, acreage per person and the population in the scheme. The report also having carried out the study primarily focused on the economic well being of the tenant farmers vis-à-vis access to irrigation/water at Mwea.
The focus of the study was also on the economic arguments for or against having a system, such as Mwea. It also focused on exploring the possibility of using the scheme to provide food security to the scheme population as well as make a national food contribution from the area. It identified the problems facing the scheme farming methods in the absence of NIB which included:
a) Water availability, management and usage was in a poor state
b) Damaged roads, canals and water gates. The whole irrigation infrastructure was in a very poor state with no hope for any improvement.
c) Low production per acreage resulting from poor farming methods, scavengers and diseases
d) High costs of agro inputs
e) Lack of research to help farmers cope with climate changes and crop diseases
f) Inefficient milling mechanisms, poor grading and poor marketing.
The study also identified unresolved Issues arising from the change over against NIB which include water management, provision of infrastructure, research on diseases and seeds etc. The Mwea Water Use Management established to control and manage water usage is also brought to the picture in this report. While this is a close research to the expected study, it fails to identify a clear way forward in helping the farmers market their products efficiently, improve the farming methods or fully utilize the scheme to its potential. The socio economic status of the farmers is also not established.
Mburu, Omwansa and kihanya (2002) carried out an inquiry and wrote a report of the then Mwea Rice Growers Multi –purpose cooperative society which has since collapsed. The inquiry was sponsored by the ministry of cooperative development in 2002 concluded that there was gross mismanagement of the rice production under the cooperative society. This was more of an audit report which gives guidelines on how to audit the society but this is no longer relevant since the society has already collapsed.
Muturi (2003) in his project on improved agricultural rural transport for Kenya a case study of Mwea elaborates the current issues related to crop transportation. The study gives a historical detail of the management under NIB and post NIB and the impacts of the change. He has given various recommendations in major issues such as marketing, transportation; harvesting grading and packaging which an observer would say have been overtaken by events over the last four years due to changes in the political environment, climate changes and the economic global melt down. While he has given the status as at 2003 a few years after the change of management, it would be important to revisit the status today given closer issues related to the scheme have occurred notably water management (NIB website).
Gatimu (2003) in his study “Are We Mortgaging Our Lives?” strived to understand the politics of trusteeship in local development. On account of trusteeship, one agency is entrusted with acting on behalf of another to try to ensure the development of the other. In this case the NIB was the agency acting on behalf of the tenant who was to the beneficiary. Their findings show that the failure of the agency to involve the beneficiaries in their development initiatives leads to the later distancing themselves is the activities of the former. The local community began to view the trustee as the beneficiary serving the interests of its own and that of its master. The relationship between the two then became increasingly troubled as the beneficiaries developed negative perception towards the trustee. As a result, the development initiatives by the trustee failed to be sustainable. Their recommended the Trustees need to legitimize their development activities at the local Level through encouraging popular participation as the only way that can make development initiatives sustainable as the beneficiaries continue to own their projects and to associate themselves with their development activities. The future of trusteeship therefore lies in a situation where the trustee and the beneficiaries sit and discuss on the way forward and the necessary interventions to be made. The study highlighted the status of the farmers under the NIB era and post NIB era and especially the restrictions practices that were in place under NIB
An article by African News Network (June 2008) recently gave a journalistic approach on how rice farming has been affected by new diseases and the current water management problems with no identified possible solutions.
Pambazuka (2009) published by Fahamu addresses the protection and promotion of human rights amongst rural populations. The publication section on ‘Dying to be free’ is the story of the heroic struggle for survival, justice and dignity by rice farmers in Mwea District, Kenya. They refer to the NIB system as a ‘virtual serfdom’ whereby farmers worked on land for which they had no title deed and were forced to hand over their produce to the National Irrigation Board.
The publication also tries to demonstrate how resistance to violations of social and economic rights results in confrontations with the state that inevitably lead to violations of civil and political rights. It also demonstrates that the struggle for ‘development’ and rights are intimately intertwined. This publication focused on human rights and the struggle of the tenant farmer.
3.0 Methodology
The Materials will include:
i. Questionnaires
ii. Sample size calculator from www.raosoft.com which helps to calculate the sample size given the confidence level and margin of error.
iii. Data analysis soft ware from www.spss.com .
3.1 Study Design
The assessment will look at household income and expenditures, yields, costs, markets and challenges facing the farmers. The assessment will be structured around three components. The first of these is a set of household interviews with farmers as participants who will give quantitative data on incomes, expenditures, yields, costs and challenges. The second component will be meetings with key informants who will include National irrigation Board employees who were there during the NIB era and post NIB era or retirees, rice middlemen and consumers. Finally, profiles from farmers who will give information on their farming experiences during NIB era as tenants and post NIB era as land owners.
3.2 Study Areas
The study area will be carried out in all the four sections of the rice farming scheme and some consumer outlets in Nairobi area specifically Nakumatt and Uchumi supermarkets.
3.3 Sampling Method and size
In the household interviews, a stratified random sample will be carried where the population will be divided into the four previous NIB rice sections. The sample will then be picked from each section randomly and every farmer will have an equal chance of being picked.
The rice farmers’ population is about 3000, Margin of error is 5%, Confidence level 95% and a response distribution of 50%. In this regard using the Raosoft sample size calculator the sample size will be 341 farmers.
The second and third component of data collection from key informants and profiles will be random selection of available and willing persons who qualify the profile of needed information.
3.4 Data Collection Methods
a) Questionnaires to be administered to the farmers
b) Interviewing key informants who will include National Irrigation Board official, opinion leaders and farmers at individual levels
c) Profiles of two farmers will be recorded and narrated.
d) Interviewers will be under instructions to note the physical aspect of the Mwea area in terms of general infrastructure i.e. roads, electrification etc. They will also observe the state of the houses whether brick or mud walled, thatched or mabati etc
e) Literature review of recorded information at the NIB, written journals, newspapers and past research documents
3.5 Data Analysis
Quantitative data from the household interviews will be entered into the spss software and various analyses such as averages, totals, will be calculated and quantified. The qualitative data collected from the opinion leaders and focus group discussions will be condensed to produce a summary of information given.
3.6 Budget
Item No. Description Quantity required Amount No. of Days Totals
1 Personnel
Research assistants/ Focus discussion leaders 1 1,500 8 12,000
Interviewers 5 1,000 8 40,000
Data entry 1 300 10 3,000
2 Local travel
