NAIROBI, Kenya

As Kenya highly expects a bumper harvest in the next one month, long term declining rainfall due to climate change remains a significant threat to staple food production.

Poor soils, limited storage facilities, inefficient markets and marketing systems including persistent under investment in agricultural research and extension continue to limit the potential of the sector.

“There is much to be done to strengthen the sector and improve food security since millions of people struggle to get what to eat and 17 percent of the children under the age of five suffer from effects of malnutrition,” the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) President Dr. Jane Karuku said on Wednesday.

Karuku called on the government to form alliances and invest in innovation that will help women and men on front lines of Kenya’s agricultural workforce. Karuku was speaking during the Kenya Agricultural Transformation Forum (KATF) that brought together government, private sector and agricultural research experts in Nairobi.

The meeting is expect to map out strategies for developing practical solutions to fuel Kenya’s agricultural and nutritional future, that given the proper support, the smallholder farmers can feed the future of the country and the continent.

Karuku said that AGRA is due to launch the Kenya Incentive Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (KIRSAL) that is expected to leverage at least 500 million U.S. dollars of financing for more than 1.5 million small scale farmers and 10,000 agribusinesses.

She said that through the integrated programmes on soils, seeds, markets and agri-finance, AGRA engages in a variety of private and public sector partnerships designed to promote rapid growth on smallholder farms.

“Our shared vision is the transformation of agriculture into a highly productive, sustainable and competitive system,” she added.

Karuku noted that through AGRA’s intervention in building a stronger network of agro-dealers in western Kenya, the average distance that smallholder farmer’s travel to obtain commercial inputs has been reduced to four kilometres from 17 kilometres.

“The Kenya government is deeply committed to investing in this sector, because we can see the potential it carries for attaining our food security objectives as well as increasing rural incomes,” Prime Minister Raila Odinga said.

Odinga said that the government has positioned agriculture as one of the six sectors expected to generate the bulk of vision 2030 targets for economic growth.

He said that Kenya’s food insecurity can easily be won over through dialogue that can translate to better terms for food producers and consumers.

Odinga observed that the youths must be involved in agriculture by making agriculture interesting to them as a way of motivating them and not asking them to resort to agriculture yet they are not availed with the new tools in the market.

“We need to have a deliberate and carefully targeted strategy for expanding opportunities for youth in this sector,” he added. He said that with devolution system of government, greenhouse farming can be extended to help create more jobs and economic growth of the rural areas.

Odinga told the ministry of agriculture to ensure that only good quality planting seed reach the farmers to avoid devastating effects.

“It is high time Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) start developing resistant varieties to the current maize disease that is destroying farmer’s maize in Rift Valley besides extend their research to other crops like sweet potatoes, cassava, sorghum and legumes,” he noted.

Odinga said that with the eminent effects of climate change, delicate crops like maize are severely affected hence calling for the development and research into traditional crops.

Kenya’s Vision 2030 Director General Mugo Kibati said that the non range reserves that are rarely in agricultural use should be used in food production to help improve food security.

“Agriculture is the engine of our nation’s economy: yet far too many Kenyans struggle to ensure their fields prosper and their families are fed. There is far too much promise in our country’s agricultural sector for us to fall short of our economic potential, ” Kibati said.

Kibati challenged the government to improve the road network to help improve food distribution in all parts of the country adding that it is unfair to have food in some parts of the country while the rest of the country goes without food.

The Forum discussed the need for agricultural innovation, food pricing agricultural financing and links to nutrition. These issues are critically important given that agriculture accounts for 65 percent of Kenya’s total exports and provides more than 70 percent of informal employment in rural areas.

Last year, Kenya’s food prices rose to an alarming rate. Today majority of families still struggle to put food on the table. Kenya is currently implementing the Agriculture Sector Development Strategy (ASDS) which envisages a food secure and prosperous nation by 2020.

Two pillars of that strategy are to reduce the number of food insecure people by 30 percent, and to reduce the numbers of people living below the poverty line to less than 25 percent. Under vision 2030, Kenya plans to have a fertiliser manufacturing plant to help reduce costs to the farmers who rely on the expensive imported fertiliser.

The meeting was designed to strengthen the strategy framework for enhanced research innovation and small-holder farmer supports that will help Africa achieve its rightful place as a global leader in achieving sustainable food security. (Xinhua)