ADC recovers 6,000 acres of its grabbed land countrywide

The Agricultural Development Corporation has fully recovered 6,000 acres of its land that had been grabbed countrywide, the Managing Director Mohamed Bule has said.

Mr. Bule who was touring the ADC Kisiwani Top Farm in Malindi Sub County, Kilifi County in the company of the ADC board of directors led by its chair Dr. Joseph Rotumoi said that 3,000 acres had been recovered at the Malindi farm while another 3,000 recovered at Ndabibi farm in Naivasha, Nakuru County.

“The land that has already been recovered includes 3,000 acres at Top Farm which was recovered from alleged squatters. A lot of land was sold to unsuspecting Kenyans, the other land is 3,000 acres at Ndabibi in Naivasha and also 60 acres from Kitale Semen Production Centre and so the progress in recovering land has been enhanced over the years and we can say that most of the land is back in our hands,” he said.

He added that there is a plan to fence the ADC lands across the country to deter land grabbers and squatters as they try to recover more of its lost land.

“We have been talking to organizations like the National Youth Service who have the resources so that we can partner with them to do fencing. The fencing can be in the form of life fence, electric fence or digging trenches around the farms and the securing of land is more important now than before because of Kenyans being mad about processing land,” he said.

According to the ADC Director Ephantus Murage, said together with surveyors, ADC discovered that more than 600,000 acres of its Galana Kulalu ranches were being subdivided for sale by land grabbers and moved fast to halt the process.

“I want to appreciate government action because we could have lost 673,000 acres at Galana Kulalu. The hiving and subdivision was at a rate of 25,000 acres every month,” he said.

Dr. Rotumoi said that his team was on a familiarization tour of the ADC properties in the coast region so that they can plan to how invest.

“The challenges that our people face include land grabbing, poaching and inadequate staff and we have millions of acres of land that we would wish to maximize their production,” said Dr. Rotumoi.

The state agency has vast lands spread across the country in the counties of Kilifi, Tana River, Garissa, Laikipia, Nakuru and Trans Nzoia.