How to Turn Kenya into an Agricultural Powerhouse
The most important needs of smallholder farmers at the top
of national policy formulation is the driver that will ignite Kenya into an
agricultural powerhouse.
Using the example of India’s Green Revolution, the first
step that the Kenyan Government needs to do is to prioritize smallholder
farmers. In the case of India, the government prioritized farmers and made sure
they were treated fairly. Any transaction between the farmer and traders has to
be verified because in the value chain, the broker earns more than the
producer. Although in the recent past heated debates have emerged whether the
government should interfere with commodity prices or not, but the government
should guarantee a minimum price for certain key commodities. There have been
certain attempts to do so with maize and wheat but follow up is lacking and
that is why such interventions have failed.
The second step is to provide farmers with information.
Smallholder farmers are mostly illiterate and lack the know-how on the best
practices for increased productivity. The government needs to scale up its
extension services to reach every farmer. Financial planning and what crops to
grow are key knowledge areas that the farmer needs.
The third step has to do with putting credit facilities in
the hands of the farmer. In the case of India, the government gave incentives
to banks for them to lend to the agricultural sector. Most banks in Kenya
consider the sector too risky and shy away from giving farmers credit
facilities. The conditions banks set scare away farmers and they would rather
leave their farms idle than approach a bank for a loan.
These measures transformed India from a country unable to
feed itself to a country feeding one billion people and US$10billion worth of
food export this year.
Another example from India: The country is the world largest
milk producer yet majority of the farmers don’t own more than a few cows. The secret
is the 80% to 90% smallholder farmers.
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