Agricultural Imagination: What if Kenya allocates 10% of its arable land to rice production?

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4716734/v1

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Systematic Review

Agricultural Imagination: What if Kenya allocates 10% of its arable land to rice production?

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4716734/v1

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Rice contributes significantly to food security, employment and increased income among many households. The demand and consumption of rice in Kenya have greatly widened due to rapid population growth and shift away from maize due to climate change impacts. Unfortunately, the increase in consumption is not commensurate to increase in crop productivity and land area. As a result, Kenya is compelled to import 90% of milled rice to cater for domestic demand. As a way to alleviate this, an imagination about increasing total land area under rice production to 10% of the total national arable land was considered in this study. A systematic review was conducted following thePRISMA guidelines. The aim of the review was to establish the suitability of different areas for rice production, possibilities of import substitution, increased production, impact of rice production on employment and the milling industry. Literature was accessed from various databases with only 26 studies selected for inclusion in the study. The study revealed that over 40% of the areas in Kenya are moderately suitable for rice production. Moderate areas yield 5.7% less than highly suitable areas. Allocating 10% of moderately suitable land to rice production has the potential of yielding 1,815,000 MT of rice annually. Rice imports can be fully substituted in the initial periods and more than a million jobs can be created. The Kenyan government should develop policies that would enhance the utilization of arable land to increase rice production.

Import substitution

Jobs

Land suitability

Rice

Productivity

Previous studies indicate that rice production in Kenya was introduced in 1907 by the Europeans (Ngige 2004; MOA 2008; Onyango 2014; Obura, Ombok & Omugah 2017; Atera, Florence & Eucabeth 2018; Ndirangu & Oyange 2019; NRDS 2020). However, a study by Uma (2022) shows that rice production was introduced in Kenya in early 1800s. Kenya’s rice sector is dominated by irrigated rice production (80%) (MOA 2008). Production of rice is concentrated in Kirinyaga, Kisumu, Migori, Homa Bay, Siaya (Anyiko), and Taita Taveta regions (National Rice Development Strategy 2020). Other than irrigation which is the most dominant method of farming, rainfed rice production is taking shape in Busia, Bungoma, Kakamega, Kwale, Kilifi, Meru, Isiolo, Migori, Baringo and Murang’a. This is attributed to government initiative aimed at increasing rice production. Majority of rice producers in Kenya are smallholder farmers. About 300,000 rice farmers provide labour and also earn their livelihood from rice farming (Vishnu & Mukami 2020).

According to Lambin & Meyfroidt (2011), arable land is highly demanded globally. This can be attributed to the widened and rapidly growing demand for food and energy worldwide. In Kenya, it is evidenced that arable land vastly exists, however, it is not fully utilised. According to Water Resource Group (2016), out of the 5.5M hectares of Kenya’s arable land, only 17% is suitable for rain fed agriculture while 3% is irrigated. In 2020, the total land area under rice production was estimated at 43,619 hectares (KNBS, 2020 p.16). Through the second phase of National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS), the government targets to increase irrigable land to 171,676 Ha and 42,000 Ha under rain fed production by 2030. The productivity of rice under irrigation is estimated at 4.2 t/Ha (Atera, Florence & Eucabeth, 2018) and 2.0 t/Ha under rain fed system. The government aims to increase production to 7.5 t/Ha for irrigated rice and 3.5 t/Ha for rain fed production (NRDS 2020, p.7). Considering the current land area (43,619 Ha), rice production in Kenya covers only 0.8% of the total arable land. With the government intention of increasing it to 171,676 Ha under irrigation and 42,000 Ha under rain fed production by 2030, rice production will cater for only 3.9% of the total arable land. Ndirangu and Oyange (2019) assert that the country has a potential of about 540,000 hectares of irrigable land and 1.0 million hectares of rain-fed land suitable for rice production.

The production of rice in Kenya has gradually staggered around lower volumes of 150,000MT in 2018 (KNBS, 2019), 130,000MT in 2019 and 180,890MT in 2020 (FAOSTAT, 2022). During the same period, rice consumption rose by 72% to 949,000MT in 2018. Compared to the local production, meeting local demand necessitated importation which consumed a whooping Ksh 26 billion (NRDS, 2020). The fact that Kenya imports over 90% of the domestically consumed rice makes the country the leading net importer within the East African region. Unfortunately, the National Rice Development Strategy (2020) estimates the annual national rice consumption at 1.9 million MT. If nothing is done to avert the situation now, it may be said that Kenya is heading from bad to worse. Thus, the demand-supply gap will continue to worsen the more.

Given its income-generating potential, government policies through the Agricultural Sector. Growth and Transformation Strategy (ASTGS), National Food and Nutrition Security Policy (NFNSP) and Vision 2030 have prioritized rice as a strategic crop. To revive the rice subsector, the government of Kenya developed the second National Rice Development Strategy which runs until 2030. Other national policies and strategies equally aim at national economic growth and development and have the potential to influence growth in the rice subsector. Rice as an income generating crop can immensely contribute to the realization of a food secure and industrialized Kenya. Achieving this will require technological advancement in rice seed breeding, production and processing.

Though the NRDS-2 predicted rice production to be 298,000MT by 2020, the data from FAOSTAT shows that 180,890MT of rice was produced in Kenya in 2020 (FAOSTAT 2022). This indicates that the projected volume was 39.2% less than the actual volumes produced. It is worth noting that the increase in consumption maintained the 12% rate in the same year. In case the trend is to continue in that manner, then local production will cater for a negligible 0.1% of domestic consumption and Kenya will be force to import 100% of milled rice to match the local demand. While imagining a possible and practical solution to this problem, this study poses a rather provocative question. What if Kenya allocates 10% of its arable land to rice production, what would really happen? The 10% was considered because of its potential towards producing a volume necessary for self-sufficiency. The objectives pursued in relation to the question were targeted towards realising suitability of different areas in Kenya for rice production, possibilities of import substitution, increased production volumes, impact on employment, processing industry, household income and contribution to national economic growth.

A systematic review can be conducted using guidelines according to Briner and Denyer (2012). To undertake a comprehensive review, the study employed the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews (PRISMA) guidelines. In the application of this methodology, a guideline checklist was developed and followed to clearly indicate and describe the stages of article identification, selection, screening, eligibility criteria and inclusion. Various databases were traversed to identify articles to be used in the review. Using rice suitability as a keyword, the results yielded by each database were as follows: Elsevier (2,380), Springer Link (21,513), Emerald Journals (726), Wiley Online Library (8,323), Taylor and Francis (5,122), Science Direct (19,342). Google Scholar was searched in two different ways: The first involved keying “rice suitability” as a keyword which yielded 328,000 results. The second involved narrowing the search to “rice suitability in Kenya” which yielded 26,000 results. This was done in the month of April 2022 with no restriction on the year of publication. Rice suitability as a keyword was used to get a broader view from the databases while rice suitability in Kenya was keyed in Google Scholar to access specific articles with specific context to the suitability of rice in different areas within Kenya.

For an article to be included in the study, three parameters were to be met. The first was to examine rice suitability across all contexts in terms of geographical areas. Therefore, any study on the suitability of other crops were discarded at this point. Studies that included aspects related to suitability of rice cultivation with close focus on African context were considered. Therefore, studies that largely relied on the rice production, marketing, consumption and use of rice by-products were excluded. Most importantly, studies that are adequately related to the objective of the study with reference to the Kenyan context were included. Therefore, studies that were far from the Kenyan context were relegated. Overall consideration was given to studies published in English language.

The overall search generated a total of 385,406 results out of which 26 were regarded to be satisfactory in meeting the objectives of the study. This number was reached basing on the inclusion criteria described above. To visually illustrate further how this number was reached at, a PRISMA diagram is described below. The PRISMA flow diagram template used was downloaded from (PRISMA 2020).

3.1 Characteristsics of the studies included

A total of 26 studies with varying components were included in the study. Based on the title, 73.1% of the studies were conducted in Kenya while 26.9% were conducted outside Kenya. A proportion of 23.1% addressed issues to deal with suitability of rice production, 11.5% were concerned with irrigation suitability, 61.5% included the word “rice” in the title and 57.7% had at least something to do with objectives of the study and added relevant information to the study.

Concerning the year of publication, Table 1 shows that 27% of the studies were published between 2020 and 2022, 61.5% of the studies were published between 2010 and 2019 and 11.5% of the studies were published between 2004 and 2009. The oldest study included was Ngige (2004) while information retrieved from FAOSTAT about the current rice production volumes in Kenya on was the most recent information in the study (FAOSTAT 2022). The year 2022 had the highest number of studies considered (15.4%) followed closely by 2020 and 2013 each accounting for (11.5%) of the studies, 2011, 2016,2017 and 2019 accounting for 7.8% each and the rest of the years accounting for 3.8% of the studies considered.

Table 1

Year of publication of all the considered publications in the study
Year of publication	Number of related publication	Percentage (%)
2010	3	11.5
2011	1	3.8
2012	3	11.5
2013	3	11.5
2014	1	3.8
2015	1	3.8
2016	2	7.7
2017	2	7.7
2018	1	3.8
2019	2	7.7
2020	3	11.5
2022	4	15.4
Total	26	100

3.2 Suitability of different areas for rice production

Kihoro, Bosco and Murage (2013) conducted a study in Mwea region to determine the areas suitability of rice production using multicriteria evaluation and Geographic Information System (GIS) approach. They found that out of the 86, 634 ha, 24.69% of the region is highly suitable, 47.45% is moderately suitable, 14.39% is marginally suitable and 13.48% is not suitable for rice production. Despite the potential, the study further revealed that only 12% of Mwea region is being used for rice production. According to Abach (2016), 21% of the land in Kisumu is highly suitable for rice production, 41.1% is moderately suitable and 18.5% is marginally suitable. This is in congruence with Afullo (2009) who established that between 40–45% of the land in Kisumu is suitable for irrigation. Kuria, Ngari and Waithaka (2011) conducted a similar study to determine the suitability of Tana delta for rice production. Their study revealed that 67% of the land is highly suitable while 14% is moderately suitable and 10% is marginally suitable. The underutilisation of areas suitable for rice cultivation in Kenya is further supported by Wang (2015).

Dengiz (2013) affirms that rice grain yields of all varieties are affected by location. This is revealed in his study where the mean rice grain yields in highly suitable, moderately suitable, and marginally suitable areas were 7,287 kg/ha, 6,872 kg/ha, and 3,928 kg/ha respectively. This aspect points to the emphasis required when estimating the productivity of different areas that can be used for rice cultivation. Suitability which is a pertinent consideration in widening area under cultivation directly translates to employment opportunities. Nolte and Ostermeier (2017) emphasize that the effect on employment as a result of large scale investment in agriculture depends on the crop cultivated, former land use and production model. They also elucidate that indirect employment effects become visible mostly in the medium and long term. A study by Gindling and Newhouse (2013) indicates that jobs created in agriculture are always self-employment opportunities. According to Nolte and Ostermeier (2017), for jobs to be profitable, employment should be based on labour intensity instead of labour productivity. Kinkingninhoun Medagbe et al. (2020) revealed that each hectare of rice can productively employ an average of 2.2 workers.

4.1 Total national rice output at 10% coverage of national arable land

To come up with unbiased estimations, it is necessary to determine the differences in rice productivity in highly suitable, moderately suitable and marginally suitable areas for rice production. According to Dengiz (2013), yields in highly suitable areas are 5.7% and 46.1% higher than those in moderately suitable and marginally suitable areas respectively. Yields in moderately suitable areas are 42.8% higher than the yields in marginally suitable areas. Thus, a unit area in a highly suitable area can be considered to be more productive than a marginally suitable unit area.

Assuming that Kenya allocates 10% of the marginally suitable areas for rice cultivation, productivity of rice would be estimated to be 5.7% below the volumes produced in highly suitable areas. Considering the productivity estimation of 3.5 t/Ha (NRDS 2020) in a highly suitable area, then the actual productivity in moderately suitable area would be 3.3 t/Ha (5.7% less than yields in highly suitable areas). Since 5.5 million hectares was established as the total arable land in Kenya, 10% of this would be equivalent to 550,000 hectares. If fully utilised, the total annual rice production would amount to 1,815,000 MT. Productivity increase as farmers become more innovate and adopt better production technologies. Enhanced productivity can further boost national output to more than 2,000,000 MT per annum. On the other hand, in case the 10% of land is highly suitable, productivity of 3.5 t/Ha would lead to a total national output of 1,925,000 MT annually.

4.2 Possibilities of import substitution.

Kenya imports over 90% of rice for local consumption valued at Kshs 26 billion (KNBS 2019). This is due to the 12% annual increase in rice consumption. Since increase in production is far much lower compared to increase in consumption, the country is compelled to import over 900,000 MT of rice annually (KNBS 2019). Assuming a constant volume of national output, Kenya is likely to enjoy periods of surplus rice. It is important to note that as much as production volumes has been assumed to be constant, this may not happen in real life. As farmers earn more income from production, they are compelled to increase quantity of inputs used and adopt new and improved production technologies. Remember, one of the goals of NRDS-2 is to increase productivity of irrigated rice from 3.5 t/ha to 7.5 t/Ha by 2030. Productivity is thus expected to increase with time which will extend the tenure of national surplus. This implies that the Kshs 26 billion spent annually on rice importation can be allocated to other sectors and uses within the country.

4.3 Effect on employment

Rice value chain provides employment opportunities to men, women and children. Women and children are mainly involved planting, weeding, bird scaring, harvesting, threshing and drying while men are engaged in land preparation and transportation. Both men and women participate in rice marketing though women dominate the local retail rice businesses. More other jobs are indirectly created along the value chain from input supply to distribution. The improved incomes through employment and entrepreneurship across all nodes of the rice value chain greatly contribute in supporting food security and improving the livelihood of most households.

Estimating the exact jobs that may result from increasing land area under rice production seems difficult because of the varying labour requirements at different times during rice production. The most basic way of estimating increase in job opportunities is to consider the current land area under rice in relation to the jobs available. Rice production in Kenya currently accounts for only 0.8% of the total national arable land. This percentage of land directly employs over 300,000 farmers in the rice value chain. Considering 10% (550,000 hectares) of arable land allocated to rice production in Kenya, the resulting number of jobs would be 1,210,000 (considering 2.2 workers per hectare of rice). Any amount of investment that is capable of creating more than one million jobs and saving an economy Ksh 26 billion is worth trying.

With the low mill utilisation capacity in Kenya ranging from 20 to 50%, increasing volumes of rice produced induces increased supply of paddy for milling thus improving the capacity utilisation of the mills throughout the year. To cope with the high volumes of paddy, millers will be incentivised to employ more workers at sourcing, transportation, milling and distribution nodes. Further, they will be compelled to invest in new and better milling technologies to efficiently handle the large volumes of paddy. This will tremendously contribute to the realisation of national initiatives including the Big 4 agenda components such as improving food security and manufacturing sector and Vision 2030 that seeks to transform Kenya into an industrialised economy. Surplus milled rice will motivate millers to explore export markets thus greatly contributing foreign revenue earnings for both the millers and the government of Kenya. The revenue earned by the millers and the government eventually trickles down to the farmers in form of services offered by the primary recipients of foreign income. The more income and services the farmers receive, the more they will expand production, adopt better technologies and employ more people. This brings about a multiplier effect of increased production on employment in an agricultural value chain.

The systematic review shows that most of the arable areas of Kenya are moderately suitable for rice production. The yields of rice in moderately suitable areas are 5.5% less compared to the yields obtained in highly suitable areas. Allocating 10% of the marginally suitable areas for rice cultivation in Kenya would yield a productivity of 3.3 t/Ha basing on the current cultivars used by farmers. Since the total arable land is 5.5 million hectares, 550,000 hectares (10%) would result to total annual rice production amounting to 1,815,000 MT. Productivity increase as farmers become more innovate and adopt better production technologies. This can further boost national output to more than 2,000,000 MT per annum. Possibilities of enjoying periods of surplus rice may then set in as a form of import substitution. As farmers earn more income from production, they will increase quantity of inputs used and adopt new and improved production technologies. Productivity increase with time will then extend the tenure of national surplus. Over 5 million jobs can be created considering the current land area to labour ratio. In addition, basing on the number of farmers required per hectare, over 1.2 million jobs can be created.

Increasing land area allocated for rice production has a positive impact on job creation, import substitution and processing subsector. Any amount of investment that is capable of creating more than one million jobs and saving an economy Ksh 26 billion is viable. The rapidly population growth has the ability to render the rice value chain useless if at all government and other players become reluctant. Rice value chain actors ought to accompany these efforts with continuous innovations, improvement and adoption of better and improved production technologies for long term effects to be realised. Determining the actual cost of production in arable areas where rice has never been cultivated needs to be given attention. Establishing the exact yield of rice in moderately suitable areas basing on Kenyan conditions will provide more realistic estimation of the future. Furthermore, understanding the suitability of locally available rice cultivators in moderately suitable areas where rice has never been cultivated would provide a reasonable incentive towards investment in the sector.

Author Contribution

Conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft preparation and revision, visualization - Uma Apollo: Conceptualization, methodology, writing, and editing - Florence Opondo and Dickson Okello: Supervision - Florence Opondo and Dickson Okello. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

7. Acknowledgment

This study was made possible by The “Transforming African Agricultural Universities to Meaningfully Contribute to Africa's Growth and Development” (TAGDev) program from the MasterCard Foundation (MCF) implemented through the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).

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No competing interests reported.

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Agricultural Imagination: What if Kenya allocates 10% of its arable land to rice production?

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Abstract

Figures

1. Introduction

2. Materials and Method

3. Results

3.1 Characteristsics of the studies included

3.2 Suitability of different areas for rice production

4. Discussions

4.1 Total national rice output at 10% coverage of national arable land

4.2 Possibilities of import substitution.

4.3 Effect on employment

5. Conclusion and Recommendations

Declarations

Author Contribution

7. Acknowledgment

References

Additional Declarations

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