Farm scale as a driver of agricultural development in the Kenyan Rift Valley

Farming in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is historically dominated by small-scale farms (SSFs), but evidence suggests that medium-scale farms (MSFs) are becoming increasingly prominent. These MSFs are often portrayed as entrepreneurial innovators, bringing dynamism and commercialization to SSA agriculture without displaying the negative features of land grabbing processes. However, there is little empirical evidence supporting these claims. We deployed a survey of 319 farmers covering a wide range of sizes in the Kenyan Rift Valley. Results show that MSFs are not a new phenomenon in the area, and are mostly farms that incrementally increased in size by buying or renting additional land. Furthermore, we find no differences in yields for various crop types between SSFs and MSFs. On average, MSFs use a higher share of their land for grazing, and have more dairy cattle per farm but less per hectare. The average MSF has a higher propensity to grow cash crops and serve non-local markets than the average SSF, and they employ significantly fewer people per hectare. However, within-category heterogeneity is high for all investigated dimensions, while past decision-making and future aspirations reveal entrepreneurship to occur in all farm size categories. We conclude that only a subset of all MSFs can be characterized as entrepreneurial, while these qualities can also be attached to many SSFs. Hence, we find that farm scale is an imperfect proxy to gauge the characteristics of a farm system, and presenting MSFs as a developmental panacea for SSA's rural areas is therefore unwarranted.

Automated summary

The study found that medium-scale farms in the Kenyan Rift Valley are not a new phenomenon, and most of them have gradually increased in size by buying or renting additional land. There is no difference in crop yields between medium-scale farms and small-scale farms, but medium-scale farms tend to grow cash crops and serve non-local markets, while employing fewer people.