Nutrition in agricultural development: Land settlement in Coast Province, Kenya

This study concerns land settlement in Coast Province, Kenya, that occurred between 1960-1970 and the effects on later household income, food production and nutrition. Household surveys were conducted among tenants in different settlement schemes and among the population in rural comparison locations. In all aspects studied, the settlement tenants were better off than the rural population. Further analysis indicated that the nutritional improvements can only partly be attributed to increases in food production and agricultural income. Income from employment was also higher than that of the rural comparison population and this must also have contributed to the improvements. Households with large farms generally realized larger incomes but also had much larger families and food consumption, and nutritional status of young children was lower among these households. It is concluded that the land distribution had a positive influence on household income and nutritional conditions. The relation of farm size and household well-being, however, was not straightforward, being confounded by differences in family size and by the frequency of off-farm employment. The fact that the households with the highest incomes did not show the most favourable nutritional conditions demonstrates, again, the need to include social and nutritional indicators in the evaluation of rural development projects.