Address challenges facing agriculture in the country

Food security continues to be a major challenge to the nation. Currently, a large section of the population is facing starvation. However, some of the diagnoses and suggested remedies appear to be quite simplistic.

A case in point is the contention by Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett that food scarcity is a consequence of ageing farmers.

In a presentation at the inter-governmental forum on agriculture in Mombasa this week, the minister plotted the age of farmers to be between 60 and 62 years, people who no longer have the energy to push productivity.

To a large extent, it is the elderly who break their backs on farms because the youth have moved to urban centres in pursuit of better opportunities.

In itself, this belies a more fundamental problem — that farming is not paying for reasons ranging from lack of capital, inputs, proper storage, transportation, and markets.

Although agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, it never gets the attention it deserves. Budgetary allocation to agriculture is inadequate. Policies are scattered across various ministries — Lands, Water, Cooperatives, and Agriculture itself.

Land management and agriculture are shared between the national and county governments. This undermines coordination and to a large extent, there is duplication of efforts and poor resource utilisation.

The youth, who are aspirational and futuristic, can hardly survive through farming. They are forced by circumstances to look elsewhere — and not all succeed because opportunities are scarce.

The real challenges and strategic execution plans are known. The problem is being forthright, focus, and tackling the issues holistically. For example, it is common knowledge that irrigation is the way of the future, but irrigation projects are poorly executed.

We acknowledge the Agriculture Ministry’s proposal to set up a Sh20 billion kitty to promote youth farming in the next five years to develop a new crop of farmers. However, there is a need for a more comprehensive and properly coordinated approach that should be supported by sufficient funding.

CREDIT: Daily Nation