ABSTRACT
The Tana Delta (Figure 5.1) is frontier land. Bordering Somalia on the edge of the Kenyan Coast, this marginal and isolated district has long been an axis of contraband, banditry and arms smuggling. Until recently, travellers to the area were told that they should be accompanied by an armed military officer. However, the delta is also where over 50 percent of the potential of undeveloped irrigable land in Kenya lies. With food and land prices still high, despite the financial crisis, combined with population growth, the question is not ‘when’ agricultural development will come to the delta, but ‘what sort’? There are already many players trying to get a piece of the pie: Kenyan sugar companies, international agrofuel companies, and foreign governments land grabbing to ship food abroad. Nevertheless, the delta is inhabited by farmers, fishermen and pastoralists living an age-old way of life, with their own biomass and water conflicts among themselves. Some of them, mainly the pastoralists, say they will fight to the death to defend their land and livelihood.
Land grabbing
Used in earlier times, the notion of land grabbing has had mainly political connotations, referring to the aggressive taking of land, often by military force, for the expansion of territorial holdings or broadening of power. More recently, however, the term has been applied to the global rush of corporations or countries to buy up or lease farmland abroad in order to secure basic food or agrofuels and/or water supplies or simply for profit speculation. The report by GRAIN, Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security, issued in October of that year documents land-grabbing activities and the seriousness of threats to local communities across the globe:
Today's food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. On the one hand, ‘food insecure’ governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production. On the other hand, food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, see investment in foreign farmland as an important new source of revenue. As a result, fertile agricultural land is becoming increasingly privatised and concentrated. If left unchecked, this global land grab could spell the end of small-scale farming, and rural livelihoods, in numerous places around the world.
Map of the Tana Delta https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203076989/f67dd755-4bb9-4f93-924c-01284e702d27/content/ch5_page141-01_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Source: Stéphanie Duvail