Gendered Access to and Utilization of Land by Food Producers in Urban Kenya

Abstract

This paper explores gendered patterns of access to and utilization of land by urban farmers in Eldoret (Kenya). It shows that the urban farmers established entitlement over farming spaces mainly through purchase, social connections, and informal use of land around their dwellings. Owing partly to social norms and cultural practices, and partly to their better economic status, it was mostly the men who had greater entitlement to farming spaces in male-headed households; but female household heads also accessed land in their own right, although they accessed land to a limited extent and their holdings were generally smaller than men’s. However, despite high incidences of non-ownership of land among them, married women seemed to enjoy considerable access and use rights over household land for urban farming, but such rights were more limited for other land uses such as housing. Female household heads enjoyed greater control (compared to married women) over the use of household land holdings for whatever uses.