At least 50 per cent of the Ministry of Agriculture budget is spent on buying maize and its subsidies, Principal Secretary Hamadi Boga has revealed.
Prof Boga who is in charge of Crop Development and Agricultural Research said agriculture docket always gets lower allocations from the National Treasury.
He said budget making process is a political process and is not a technical process.
MORE FUNDS
“We have our aspirations as a ministry but at a political level, farmers need to lobby harder. Our MPs in the Agriculture committee need to help us lobby for more funds,” he explained.
“It is a big struggle as people are lobbying for this resources,” said Prof Boga. The Ministry was allocated Sh52.8 billion in the 2020/2021 budget.
Speaking during the third National Forum for Universities, TVETs and other Agricultural Industry players organised by Egerton University, Prof Boga urged universities to challenge status quo.
“Universities were created to challenge status quo. Why does Egerton University and University of Nairobi and other universities allow this country to grow maize where it is not suitable,” posed the PS.
“Universities must challenge the orthodox that is there in agriculture because a lot things need to change for our agriculture to succeed.”
He added: “We have nine counties where you can get a yield more than two tonnes of maize per hectare the rest is between 0.5 to 1.5 tonnes per hectare.”
MAIZE FARMING
“We’re making our smallholder farmers poor because they have become addicted to maize farming.”
“Our budget seems to enforce this addiction. This is a very difficult conversation because it is a political one. It is important we open up this conversation so that we can challenge this because only nine counties should be growing maize commercially. The rest should grow what is suitable in their areas,” said Prof Boga.
He revealed that his ministry has developed suitability maps and was talking with counties and other stakeholders to embrace this shift.
“Smallholder farmers are spending huge amounts of money growing maize and getting nothing in return because of low yields since their regions are not suitable for maize farming,” said the PS.
The ministry, he said, biggest challenge is its inability to translate science, knowledge into policy.
PANDEMIC
“It is very hard to persuade political class about this shift because they have grown up knowing maize is the in thing yet the country is only five per cent suitable for maize.”
He said this information should be communicated to stallholder farmers.
He announced that the ministry had created a Covid-19 security war room to ensure the country is food secure during the pandemic.
“This Covid-19 security war room brings together all stakeholders but lacks researchers because the issues are operational,” said Prof Boga.
The ministry has developed guidelines to ensure the food prices are stable.
On locust invasion, the CS said the government is working closely with FAO and UoN, ICIPE, to gather the latest data on the destructive insects.
“We have an app called e-locusts and we have trained youth to truck locusts,” he added.
According to FAO, Kenya has been the epicenter but the war is moving to Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, India and Maghreb region.
He revealed that the government was working with universities to do research, saying samples had been collected and were being analysed by experts.
COMMERCIAL FARMER
He announced that the ministry had embarked on digitisation of agriculture and was collaborating with universities and Technical, Vocational, Educational Training (TVET) institutions to transform the critical sector.
“Our biggest challenge is that our farmers lack knowledge, and the extension system is not sufficient to transform the smallholder farmer into a commercial farmer.”
He said if the smallholder farmers embrace modern farming, the cost of food is likely to drop.
“The cost of food is very high and eats about 45 per cent of the household budget and 10 per cent of Kenyans are food insecure,” said Prof Boga.
According to statistics, 26 per cent of children under five are malnourished saying “and we still want to grow the contribution of agriculture to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to Sh4 trillion by 2022.”
He said the ministry has high targets set by President Uhuru Kenyatta and one of the ambitious targets is to create 1,000 SMEs to enable them get inputs such as fertlisers, processors, and storage facilities and create 600,000 jobs in agriculture.
“This is a pillar we are struggling together with the counties and other stakeholders. It is very hard to transform the smallholder farmer on how they farm in this country.”
The PS said the average farmer in Kenya today is 60 years old while the average consumer is 17 years old.
POLICY DOCUMENTS
“Young people don’t want to go into farming and even students who train in agriculture end up pursuing other career paths because our agriculture is not commercialised.”
He added: “This kind of farming by smallholder farmers cannot afford to hire graduates because in the first instance it is managed inefficiently.”
Prof Boga this this country needs to create medium level farms of between 30-50 acres as stipulated in the policy documents to be run commercially.
However, he said many large scale farms have been subdivided into small commercial and residential plots.
“In Kiambu County for instance, the once booming coffee farms have been turned into real estate yet this is one of the highest potential agriculture land in Kenya.”
The country meets 72 per cent of its food requirement while 28 percent is imported.