A research article on whether access to land could unlock the economic potential of counties in Kenya.
Published on The SILO Brief.
Reading time: about 12 minutes
Before the evidence,
Picture the problem as a cycle.
It is a loop that repeats every season,
in county after county.
Idle & Underutilized public land
sits unverified and undocumented.
Because
it is unverified, it cannot be leased transparently.
Because
it cannot be leased transparently, young farmers cannot access it.
Because
young farmers cannot access it, food production stays flat while food imports rise.
Because
imports rise, county revenue stays weak.
Because
revenue stays weak, counties lack the capacity to verify and commercialise the idle land.
And the loop begins again.
Noticeably,
This is not a simple shortage of land.
It is a system failure
where land, youth, capital and risk protection are each locked in separate boxes and no mechanism connects them.
See the Problem for Yourself
1.The Jomo Kenyatta Land Promise
2. Young farmers and the land access barrier.
3. Agribusiness as a sustainable tool to mitigate rural-urban migration of youth in Kenya
4. The Story of jobless Kenyan youths using desperate means to get employment
Idle Land Is an Economic Bottleneck
In Kisumu, the Governor has said that over 40 per cent of land in the city remains underutilised or undeveloped, calling it an economic bottleneck. That statement was made in the context of urban land use, but the pattern of unproductive public land is one the Treasury has recognised nationally. Its Circular No. 3/2026 directs Ministries, Departments, Agencies, and County Governments to optimise the use of government assets, including idle land. The circular warns that failure to fully utilise government assets undermines fiscal consolidation and public financial management reforms, and it gives accounting officers 90 days to report on underutilised assets and plans to optimise them.
Young People Cannot Reach the Land
An estimated 10 per cent of Kenyan youth are directly engaged in agriculture. The 2024 FinAccess Household Survey reveals a striking gap: 64.5 per cent of older Kenyans farm for livelihood or subsistence, but only 30.8 per cent of youth aged 18 to 35 do. Youth account for only 22.2 per cent of those whose main livelihood is agriculture. Nearly a third of rural youth are casual labourers, and a quarter are unemployed.
The barrier is not interest.
It is access.
A 2024 study of 240 respondents in Kakamega County found that limited access to land is a significant barrier for youth involvement in agriculture, affecting every stage of the value chain except consumption. The study concluded that land accessibility is important for youth participation and the potential economic benefits thereof. A 2021 Heifer International survey found that 59 per cent of youth respondents in Kenya named access to land as an impediment.
Rental markets could mitigate the barrier, but they are thin and informal.
As one study notes, land rental markets can enable youth to expand production without ownership, but they remain underexplored and underdeveloped. Inheritance remains the dominant route to land,
and as plots subdivide,
the average size available to youth shrinks.
The result is a paradox:
land sits idle on one side, and willing young farmers stand on the other, with no trusted bridge between them.
Sources:
https://repository.nrf.go.ke/entities/publication/494edc36-1ec6-44bd-ba56-807ae57ef424
The Risk Trap & Why Credit and Insurance Do Not Flow
Even when land is reachable, the economics of farming discourage investment. In the Central Bank of Kenya's July 2026 survey, only 34 per cent of sampled farmers had borrowed to finance farming. Fewer than one per cent of Kenyan farmers insure their crops. Across Africa, fewer than 17 per cent of farmers are insured, even as agriculture accounts for about 30 per cent of Sub Saharan Africa's GDP.
This is not because farmers are reckless. It is because the risk is uninsurable at the individual level, and lenders know it. When a drought destroys a crop, an uninsured farmer defaults. When defaults rise, lenders retreat. When lenders retreat, farmers cannot invest in better seeds, equipment, or land. The cycle tightens.
The subsidiary effects are severe. Rural youth are among the most financially excluded groups in Kenya, with 28 per cent lacking access to mobile money. Without finance, they cannot pay seasonal rent upfront. Without insurance, they cannot bear the risk of a failed season. The land may be there, but the pathway to using it is closed.
The Opportunity & The Infrastructure That Already Exists
The case for optimism is not theoretical. The building blocks are already in place.
1. Policy support on the supply side.
The LCI (Land Commercialization Initiative) is embedded in the Agricultural Sector Growth and Transformation Strategy 2019 to 2029, and it is expanding to include idle parcels owned by counties, prison farms, and other state institutions. County level frameworks are emerging. Murang'a County's Land Leases Management Bill, 2023 sets out a framework to facilitate the management of leased out county land.
Source: https://www.kenyanews.go.ke/state-banks-on-commercializing-idle-land-to-boost-food-production/
2. Digital land records.
Ardhisasa, the national land information system, is live in several counties, with ArdhiPay handling cashless transactions for land rent and stamp duty. Digitisation of land records has been achieved in Nairobi and Murang'a.
Digital payments. In 2024, 71 per cent of Kenyan adults who received agricultural payments received them digitally, the highest share in Sub Saharan Africa. This reduces the cost of rent collection and lease administration.
Source: https://ardhisasa.lands.go.ke/
3. Parametric insurance at scale.
Britam's satellite based payouts reached 294,799 farmers in 2025, up from 161,521 in 2024, an 83 per cent increase in coverage. The company paid out Sh97.3 million in climate linked claims, with Sh80.4 million going to crop insurance beneficiaries. Parametric insurance is not a pilot project. It is an operating market.
What is missing is not infrastructure. It is the connective tissue that links verified land, fair pricing, finance and insurance into a single, trusted pathway for young farmers.
Source: https://saccoreview.co.ke/britam-pays-out-ksh-97-3-million-in-climate-insurance-claims-as-kenyas-agricultural-coverage-grows-by-83/A Proposed Four Layer Platform for Giving the Land Market a Digital Backbone
The proposal is not to create a new market.
It is to give an existing market a digital backbone. The model has four layers, each addressing one piece of the trap.
Layer 1: GIS verification.
Parcel boundaries are mapped and verified from satellite imagery and OpenStreetMap, with soil, elevation, flood risk, and market access overlays built on open datasets from RCMRD, CHIRPS, NASA MODIS, and the Kenya Open Data Portal. For counties, this layer produces the verified land inventory that many currently lack. Verification is a prerequisite for making land leasable at all.
Layer 2: Actuarial pricing.
A data driven lease valuation combines soil class, rainfall reliability from over 40 years of CHIRPS data, vegetation productivity indices, and distance to markets. Every parcel receives a Lease Value Score and a fair market rate range. This turns spatial intelligence into lease pricing, credit scoring, and insurance design, giving the county a defensible, data backed basis for setting rents.
Layer 3: Lease financing.
For farmers who cannot pay seasonal rent upfront, licensed financing partners advance the lease payment to the landowner at signing, and the farmer repays from harvest proceeds. Eligibility is informed by the actuarial scoring model. This directly addresses the capital constraint that keeps young farmers out of the market.
Layer 4: Parametric insurance.
Index based weather cover is embedded in each lease and underwritten by licensed insurers. If rainfall at the parcel falls below a set threshold in the growing season, a payout is triggered automatically without a claims process. This addresses the risk constraint that makes both farmers and lenders reluctant to commit.
All core inputs come from free public sources. The value lies in the analytical engine built on top of them, not in proprietary data.
What This Means for Counties in terms of Revenue, Jobs and Food
For a county government, the benefits are concrete. First, the county obtains a verified land inventory, which is a prerequisite for any commercialisation strategy and a tool for better land use planning. Second, idle assets begin to generate lease revenue. County leases tend to run longer than private seasonal leases, giving more stable income. Third, the platform creates youth employment in farming and in the surrounding value chain: as service providers, aggregators, agri tech innovators, and entrepreneurs supporting rural value chains. Fourth, local food production increases, reducing the pressure of a food import bill that reached Sh288.1 billion in 2025.
The platform earns revenue from three streams that grow with transaction volume: a lease facilitation fee on lease value at signing, shared with the county as a land management fee where applicable; an interest margin on lease financing; and a margin on parametric insurance premiums per parcel per season. Because farming is seasonal and recurring, repeat transactions build both revenue and data quality.
A practical entry point is a free County Land Productivity Audit: a professional, data backed assessment of selected idle agricultural parcels, covering soil potential, fair lease rates, and seasonal demand. This creates value for the county before any transaction takes place.
The Counterargument on why Access Alone Is Not Enough
A responsible article must state the limits of its own claim. Access to land alone will not transform county economies. The Kakamega study found that land access is a barrier across the value chain, but it did not claim that removing the barrier would automatically generate economic transformation. Land must be arable, market access must be reasonable, and county governance must be committed to transparency.
There is also a risk that commercialisation of county land, if poorly governed, could exclude the very youth it is intended to benefit. The design principle that the county retains ownership and control, and that parcels are offered in smaller lots to young entrepreneurs, is intended to mitigate this risk. But implementation will matter more than design.
The claim of this article is,
access to land, structured through a trusted digital framework could address land legibility, fair pricing, finance, and risk.
It is a plausible and evidence backed lever for county economic transformation.
It is not a silver bullet. It is only a missing link.
Sign The Petition in order to Ask Your County to Audit Its Idle & Underutilized Land
The evidence is strong enough to act on. This article invites you to sign a petition calling on county governments to take three concrete steps.
We, the undersigned, call on our County Governments to:
Conduct a free County Land Productivity Audit of idle agricultural parcels, covering soil potential, fair lease rates and seasonal demand.
Publish a verified inventory of county held land that is suitable for agricultural leasing, so that young farmers can see what is available.
Adopt a digital leasing framework that embeds fair pricing, lease financing and parametric insurance, with the county retaining ownership and control.
References and Further Reading
All links were checked at the time of writing. Where an article is cited, its figures are attributed to the underlying source it reports.
The Star (16 May 2025). Kisumu unveils land use policy to unlock Sh80 billion in unpaid rates. https://www.the-star.co.ke/counties/nyanza/2025-05-16-kisumu-unveils-land-use-policy-to-unlock-sh80-billion-in-unpaid-rates
The Kenya Times (18 March 2026). Treasury directs audit and commercialization of idle public land. Circular text: National Treasury, Circular No. 3/2026 (12 Feb 2026).
Kabarak Journal of Research and Innovation, Vol. 16 No. 1 (2026), citing the Kenya Youth Agribusiness Strategy 2017 to 2021.
FSD Kenya (July 2025). FinAccess Spotlight #4: Farmer livelihoods are on the decline. https://www.fsdkenya.org/blogs-publications/finaccess-spotlight-4-farmer-livelihoods-are-on-the-decline-do-youth-hold-the-key-to-a-new-agricultural-future/
Rogito, J. M. and Makhanu, E. (2024). Access to land and youth involvement in agricultural value chains in Kenya. International Journal of Science and Research Archive, 11(1). https://repository.nrf.go.ke/entities/publication/494edc36-1ec6-44bd-ba56-807ae57ef424
The Standard, reporting Heifer International, Future of Africa's Agriculture (May 2021): 59 per cent of Kenyan youth surveyed cited access to land as an impediment.
Daily Nation, reporting the Central Bank of Kenya Agriculture Sector Survey, July 2026.
Business Daily (12 August 2026). Less than 1pc of Kenyan farmers have crop insurance.
Business Daily (16 April 2026). KBC opens 2,000 acres for lease in push to raise revenue. https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/markets/real-estate/kbc-opens-2-000-acres-for-lease-in-push-to-raise-revenue-5425720
Daily Nation (13 February 2024). Kenya offers 21,000 acres NYS, Tarda land lease to boost food production. https://nation.africa/kenya/business/kenya-offers-21-000-acres-nys-tarda-land-lease-to-boost-food-production--4524234
Murang'a County Assembly. The Murang'a County Land Leases Management Bill, 2023. https://assembly.muranga.go.ke/bills.php?com=23&item=411
Capital FM (31 May 2023). Govt's farmer registration exercise registers over 4 million. https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2023/05/govts-farmer-registration-exercise-registers-over-4-million/
Sacco Review (31 July 2026). Britam pays out Ksh 97.3 million in climate insurance claims as Kenya's agricultural coverage grows by 83%. https://saccoreview.co.ke/britam-pays-out-ksh-97-3-million-in-climate-insurance-claims-as-kenyas-agricultural-coverage-grows-by-83/
State Department for Lands. State Department for Lands Accelerates Digital Transformation of Land Services. https://lands.go.ke/state-department-lands-accelerates-digital-transformation-land-services
The Kenyan Wall Street (23 July 2025). Kenya Dominates Africa's Digital Agricultural Payments, citing World Bank Global Findex 2024. https://kenyanwallstreet.com/kenya-dominates-africas-digital-agricultural-payments/
Kenya News Agency (1 October 2026). Government partners with private sector to boost food security. https://www.kenyanews.go.ke/government-partners-with-private-sector-to-boost-food-security/
Nation Africa (12 February 2026). Kenya's food import bill rebounds to Sh288 billion on cost pressure. https://nation.africa/kenya/business/kenya-s-food-import-bill-rebounds-to-sh288-billion-on-cost-pressure-5357776
Land Commercialisation Initiative, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development. LCI Single Page Handout. https://lci.invest.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/LCI-Single-page-Handout-.pdf
Capital FM (4 November 2025). Low insurance uptake puts Kenyan, African farmers at risk. https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2025/11/low-insurance-uptake-puts-kenyan-african-farmers-at-risk/
KIPPRA. Youth unemployment in Kenya. https://kippra.or.ke
Your Call to action.
"If this article describes your county, share it with your Member of County Assembly. Sign the petition. Ask your county to audit its idle land. The land is there. The youth are there. The digital rails are there. What is missing is the decision to connect them."
Sign the petition below.
Your signature signals that county land should not sit idle while young farmers are locked out.
The petition will be delivered to the County Executive Committee Member for Lands and the County Assembly in the pilot county.
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