– No Land, No Life

The fertile farming lands of Mt Elgon. PHOTO: Nina von Uexküll

To find answers to this question I studied a militia in the Mt Elgon conflict in Kenya. A key finding of interviews with 75 ex-members of the SLDF militia was that the economic importance of land for farming communities is important for understanding why land became a resource worth fighting for. As one interviewee put it: “No land, no life”. Dependence on land also explains why individuals did not leave the area and became subjected to both taxation and forced recruitment by the SLDF militia.

The economic importance of land for farming communities is important for understanding why land became a resource worth fighting for.

I presented these results recently at the Agriculture Policy Scholars Conference bringing together Agricultural Economists and Political Scientists in New Orleans.