Why growth is not trickling down to rural areas

A coffee farmer in Ting’ang’a. He has chosen to continue with coffee farming despite many farmers in the county uprooting the crop to pave way for real estate. [PHOTO: JOHN KARUME/STANDARD]

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto came to power two years ago, promising to raise the living standards of majority of Kenyans who were merely existing on the periphery of the country’s economy.

They announced grandiose plans supposed to transform not just the economy but the lives of Kenyans. To their credit, plans to transform the business landscape by creating an enabling environment and reducing the cost of doing business is right on schedule.

But, the jury is still out on whether their other plans to transform the lives of the majority of Kenyans are bearing much fruit. What is certain, however, is that the majority of Kenyans, living in the rural areas, are unlikely to join the economic mainstream until the agricultural sector is transformed.

This truism was underlined earlier this week in reports published on Monday in The Standard. The publication revealed facts that must have been well-known to the country’s planners but whose enormity was hidden from the public. The paper revealed that only two out of the seven major cash crops grown locally recorded a marginal increase between 2013 and 2014. What is worse, this was a typical year as the entire sector has been on a downward trend for decades.

The sad reality the country has to face is that economic growth will not trickle down to the rural population and the large groups of people living in the urban and informal settlements scattered across the country until the Ministry of Agriculture comes up with strategies to kick-start agricultural production. The piece-meal plans the ministry often trots out of its libraries every time there are questions about its performance in a given sub-sector will simply not do.

But, perhaps, the job of turning around the sector is too much for one ministry and requires a concerted effort by a multi-sector team drawn up from the entire government, the private sector and research institutions. This approach would require no less a person than the President to chair the first meeting that would be required to come up with a broad outline of exactly what ails the sector and how it can be fixed. The recommendations would also come up with strict timelines and the expected deliverables. Last but by no means least, the individuals driving the entire exercise would also be identified.

The constant refrain often heard about lack of financing for the sector could be tackled by the banks and insurance companies working together to come up with insurance products that would be sold to farmers borrowing money. These products would take the risk from both the lender and the borrower. The government would be expected to share the cost of such insurance with the farmers.

A plausible argument could be made for the government to use part of the monies it is dishing out to women and youth enterprise groups and individuals to help them insure their crops and livestock. While it is at it, the government could also genuinely crack the whip on co-operative societies to root out the rot in them. Officials in these institutions have so routinely and openly stolen money from the members that many farmers have despaired of making any money in growing the traditional cash crops.

The government would also need to take a second look at the middlemen who are making money at the expense of farmers. Some suppliers of agricultural in-puts have demonstrated such a reckless disregard for quality that they should be driven out of the market and into jail.

Marketing and sales of agricultural produce is yet another area that has attracted vultures from around the world. Clearly, neither the farmers nor their county governments have the capacity to tame these day-light robbers.

But the government has, or could build the capacity to deal with all these unsavory characters drawn into the agricultural sector solely for the purpose of getting rich at the expense of other people’s sweat. The President should not shy away from borrowing the global best practices from other countries particularly in the newly industrialised economies of the so-called Asian Tigers.