Aside from these two staples, sweet and Irish potatoes, kale, and cowpeas are common crops. Flood-prone areas are planted with cocoyam, bananas, and sugar cane. High value crops such as onion, tomato, and Swiss chard are rarely seen because they are well liked by thieves. A small number of producers irrigate their plots with sewage water. Within the settlement of Kibera, there are numerous chickens, ducks, and goats as well as some sheep and pigs.
Animal production can be a challenge due to disease and theft.
Most of the producers involved in the study, had several plots of different sizes and with varying soil and slope characteristics. None of the producers had recognized legal rights to the land or its use. Most of the open-space land near Kibera was, until 1989, the property of the Kenyan Prison Authority. Much of this land has since been privatized. During fieldwork in 1994 it was found that several of the property owners had evicted producers without prior notice in order to make way for housing construction for middle-income earners.