Agriculture sector’s contribution to Kenya’s wealth drops to 24 percent in ten years

NAIROBI, Kenya

Kenya should reduce its high dependency on the agricultural sector, a government official said on Monday. Ministry of Agriculture Permanent Secretary Dr. Romano Kiome told journalists in Nairobi that the sector’s direct contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has reduced in the past 10 years from 26 percent to 24 percent currently.

“Due to the high vulnerability to weather patterns, the country should decrease its high dependency and focus on value addition and industrialization,” Kiome said on the sidelines of the National Consultative Workshop on Food Price Volatility in Kenya. The conference aims to discuss interventions required to end food price volatility. Kiome noted agriculture sector contributes directly and indirectly 51 percent to the GDP.

Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture John Mututho said the country’s agriculture sector is facing a myriad of challenges and that so parliament hopes to reduce the 151 statutes that regulate the sector to workable five. He noted the sector requires a well funded body to ensure food and hygiene regulations are also followed.

Mututho said the common practice of transporting vegetables in open vans or growing food crops along sewer lines should end as this could affect food safety.He added once the disease-free concept is fully embraced, the country will be able to fully exploit the livestock potential of the northern arid and semi arid lands of Kenya. FAO Representative in Kenya Dan Rugabira said the government should increase its investment in agriculture.

“The country should aim to achieve the Maputo declaration of 10 percent of budget to be devoted to agriculture,” he said. Currently, the ministry of agriculture receives around 4 percent of budget but if the support sectors, such as ministry of water and irrigation, are included, the figure is close to 9 percent. Rugabira said Kenya has uneven prices of food across the country due to poor infrastructure. “While the price of food is lower in the producing areas, the remote regions have high price due to high transportation costs,” he said.

Rugabira noted the country should also diversify its diet away from maize to other foods such as sorghum, millet and cassava. He said best intervention to achieve food security is for the country to achieve employment for all workers. “This way all people will be able to afford the food,” he said. He added most of the profits are not in the actually farming but in the value chain. “Farmers should therefore organize themselves into cooperatives in order to aggregate their produce and enter into agro processing, ” he said.

Principal policy analyst of Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research Analysis (KIPPRA) Dr. John Omiti said the country should embrace technological interventions such as biotechnology and mechanization in order to achieve food security. He called for the promotion of indigenous food crops in order to diversify food supply. KIPPRA policy analyst Dr. Paul Kamau said enhanced market information will increase the earnings of small scale farmers.

“This will allow the producers to know the final market price and discourage the middle men from exploiting the farmers,” he said. The government should also increase national food reserves both at the household and regional levels. In 2011, the government established the National Food Security and Nutrition Policy in order to ensure all households are food secure. “The policy will spearhead nutritional awareness and behavior change,” he said. FAO Agricultural Development Economist Mulat Demeke said the government should change the focus from protecting consumers to producers of food.”Supporting farmers will benefit consumers in the long run because increased domestic supply will lead to lower food prices,” he said. (Xinhua)