Kenya's population is predicted to grow by around one million per year to reach about 85 million by 2050. To support this population, overall increase in agricultural production will be vital.
Agriculture contributes 33 per cent of the GDP in Kenya and employs more than 70 per cent of the rural population. However, the agricultural sector has been dogged by many challenges. Kenya Vision 2030 highlights the challenges and the deliberate government plans to transform the sector.
Farmers still rely heavily on rain-fed farming and with the current variability of rainfall and climate change, they are increasingly becoming vulnerable to drought, leading to unsustainable food production.
The agricultural pillars adopted by the current government under the Kenya Kwanza manifesto focus on strengthening and improving the agricultural sector by enhancing yields through raising productivity in key value chains, boosting working capital, revamping export sector, empowering agriculture extension officers and deployment of agricultural risk management instruments. Counties are faced with a myriad of challenges in their quest to address food insecurity.
Population increase has gradually reduced per capita land available for farming as more land is taken up by private developers, reducing the size of land available for large scale farming. Freehold land tenure systems, land fragmentation coupled with rapid population increase in high agricultural potential areas has had adverse effects on food production.
To create concentrated and sustainable farming that can yield and feed more, counties need to embrace greenhouse farming and irrigated agriculture. This will enable them to utilise the small arable land available. They should also zone their agricultural land and incorporate ago-industries in their production for value addition and support farmers to source external market for their produce.
Cooperatives are best placed to coordinate agricultural production, offer technological input, training and research for farmers, credit services to farmers and to provide extension services. They should be brought on board.
Soil acidity is rapidly eating up arable land and has become a serious hurdle towards addressing food scarcity. The potential food baskets lack essential plant nutrients critical for production. This is largely attributed to soil mismanagement and continuous use of DAP fertiliser in many areas that has pumped a lot of phosphorous into the soil. Acidic soils inhibit survival and degenerate the environment that fix nitrogen in the soil.
The government has intervened and supplies farmers with subsidised NPK fertiliser. However, soil mapping and testing is urgently required across counties. Using remote sensing and GIS tool scan be a great leap towards intense and more accurate interventions.
Farmers are still struggling with insufficient farm and technological knowledge in several counties. There is need for intense capacity building on farming strategies, techniques, and data to increase efficiency of agricultural produce.
-Ms Bore is Director, Policy, The Executive Office of The President, State House
