The effects of land speculation on agricultural production among peasants in Kachia local government area of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

Rural land in Nigeria has in recent years become a highly valued commodity. This is associated with the changing Nigerian political economy which is marked by attempts to transform the rural sector along capitalist lines through uniform legislation to make land more easily alienable, together with a variety of agricultural development incentives which favour land accumulation by the well-to-do. The prime target region in the rush to acquire large tracts of land is the Middle Belt, where rural land speculation is rife, ostensibly for agricultural purposes. Much of the land acquired has, however, undergone little or no development and still supports the original native owners, who live on the land and cultivate it, albeit under conditions of uncertainty. In order to determine the effects of land speculation in the Middle Belt, this paper investigates the issues of outmigration, the length of the fallow period, farm management practices, staple grains output and participation in non-farm activities among two samples of farming households, one still cultivating alienated land and the other on wholly communal land, both in the Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Households on alienated land experienced more outmigration and a shorter fallow period than those on communal land. They also displayed less inclination for pre-cropping-season land preparation, used less chemical fertilizer, devoted less time to weeding, recorded a greater decline in grain output and participated more in non-farm activities than those on communal lands. It would appear that in the long term uncontrolled land speculation could lead to continued poor farm management practices, the lowering of food crop production and the premature tertiarization of rural dwellers in this area of vast but underdeveloped agricultural potential. The process of change taking place in the age-old relationship between people and land in this area and other parts of the Middle Belt needs to be carefully managed to mitigate adverse social and economic effects generated among the peasants. There is a need to strengthen democratic local government control of land administration and development through rural land use plans and a tax structure which heavily penalizes speculative landholding.