This archive report was first published on 18 September 2019.
Kenya's 'Big Four Agenda' prioritizes food security, but public spending on agriculture does not reflect this, leaving smallholders marginalized.
As a signatory to the Maputo Declaration of 2003, Kenya aims to allocate at least 10% of national spending to agriculture and achieve a minimum of 6% growth in annual agricultural output. However, spending in the sector is well below these levels and has been decreasing.
According to a recent budget session at Parliament, spending in 2020 will be 3.2% of the national budget, down from 3.5% in the current year. The bulk of this is earmarked for large-scale irrigation projects, not smallholders.
For real gains in food security, significant investments and public support are needed, focused on small-scale farmers in tandem with commercial farming.
Expanding agricultural credit and microfinance options to farmers can be an effective route in disbursing these investments. Giving small-scale farmers credit to buy high-quality inputs such as hybrid seed and fertiliser will have a direct impact on food stocks.
Family farms provide an income for 70% of rural households and are responsible for most of our food production. However, many of these families cannot afford these inputs due to high costs at the start of the planting season.
Our organisation, which serves over 300,000 farmers in Kenya, has been tracking the impact of providing smallholders with inputs on credit. We found that 97% of clients repay on time, showing strong demand for quality farm products on credit.
On average, farmers see an increase of over 50% in their crop yields, allowing them to feed their families for an entire year and sell their surplus for additional income. Last year, they had 42% higher incomes than their peers.
Interestingly, many farmers reinvest over a third of their profits in new businesses, mainly agriculture, producing even more to sell.
These results are only the tip of the iceberg for Kenyan agriculture and can be replicated at a national scale if more of our public spending was directed towards smallholders.
