Land tenure and biodiversity: An exploration in the political ecology of Murang'a District, Kenya

Human Organization, Fall 2003 by Mackenzie, A Fiona D

With respect to rights to land where contract farming has been introduced, research again suggests that women's security of tenure is threatened. In one dramatic example of the extension of irrigation in Jahaly-Pacharr swamps, The Gambia, women were unable to exercise their rights to the rice harvest even when, subsequent to their protests, irrigated land was registered in their names. As Judith Carney and Michael Watts (1990; also, Carney 1996) show, men were able to turn customary rights pertaining to the distinction between individual and household land and labor to their advantage through their manipulation of specific customary idioms, thus taking control of the products of women's labor, rice.

At issue here are not only rights to land, although these are clearly central to the renegotiation of the conjugal contract, but also rights to labor and to control of the product of labor expended on that land. I turn now to examine these issues, before relating them, in turn, to a discussion of practices that support plant genetic diversity.

Rights to Land, to Labor, and to the Product of Labor

Analysis of the politics of labor in the production of coffee in Murang'a District reveals the degree to which the household has become a deeply contested site where rights to land, labor, and the product of labor are constantly subject to negotiation. On the basis of evidence that documents the insecurity women face with respect to these rights, particularly those from poorer households, which are in the majority, I argue that it is essential to conduct research that connects these issues to those of the long-term sustainability of the soil and the maintenance of biological diversity.

Coffee was introduced in Murang'a as part of the Swynnerton Plan (1954), and colonial agricultural officers targeted its production to men. Nevertheless, officials noted that within a few years women formed the majority of coffee growers-16,000 of the total 26,000 growers-a proportion that has increased substantially in recent years with exceptionally high rates of male outmigration, reaching 75 percent in some areas. A crisis in the early 1980s, caused by the continuing drop in the quality of coffee exported from the district, brought to light the degree to which the lack of secure remuneration for women had led them to decide not to prioritize the harvesting of coffee on their own holdings (Mackenzie 1995).

The problem centered on the way coffee processing and marketing is organized, through 16 coffee societies, each a member of the Murang'a District Farmers' Cooperative Union (MDFCU). As membership in the cooperative is based on title to the land, men are in the great majority of official members, constituting 89.9 percent of members in the case of the Njora Coffee Growers' Cooperative Society (total membership 5,784 in 1984) and 83.2 percent in the case of Irati (total membership 3,221 in 1984). It is they who receive payments for coffee delivered to the societies and, as became clear, frequently did not pass money on to their wives, who had labored on the crop.