This archive report was first published on 15 September 2019.
Kenya's agriculture sector is at a crossroads, with the country struggling to feed its growing population. The average age of a Kenyan farmer is 60, while the average age of the population is 19.5 years, raising concerns about the country's ability to achieve food security.
According to statistics, 26 out of 106 university courses that failed to attract students this year were agriculture-oriented. This raises questions about why young people are not seeing the opportunities in the sector, despite food security being a significant challenge in the country.
As the population grows and arable land diminishes due to urbanization, it is essential to pursue strategies to halt the dire situation and entice youth to agriculture. First, agriculture needs to be promoted as an attractive and important business. For a long time, agriculture was associated with academic failures and retirees, which had a negative impact on the youth's perception of the sector.
Second, finance and other resources necessary for successful farming need to be made available for the youth. Few young people own land, and capital is out of their reach. Policymakers should develop innovative financing concepts and strategies to identify and fund sustainable agriculture projects.
Third, agriculture should be well-tailored to fit in the primary and secondary school curricula to create awareness of the sector as a potential employer at early stages of growth. Platforms that facilitate discussion among youth on agribusiness should be encouraged in higher education institutions.
The digital revolution offers an opportunity to attract youth to agriculture through digital platforms and innovations such as social media, apps, robotics, IoT, and artificial intelligence. These digital platforms can also be used to spread knowledge, build networks, and reduce farmers' costs in market access and information gathering while increasing their profitability.
Finally, making agriculture more profitable will require practical reduction of costs of farming through subsidies on farm inputs, making markets easily accessible, and building loss mitigation factors in case of bad weather.
While it may not be easy to change the millennial mindset about agriculture in a fortnight, baby steps must be made towards this if we are to succeed in improving Kenya's food security in the long term.
