The Kenyan authorities have announced an investment of KSh52.8 billion (about $495.3 million) to boost the agriculture sector during the 2020-21 financial year starting July. The amount is 11% less than the KSh59.1 billion invested in the sector in 2019.
The resources will be directed at irrigation programs, the purchase of inputs, and the promotion of good agricultural practices. This amount represents only 1.8% of total public expenditure, well below the 10% commitment made in Maputo in July 2003.
However, observers claim that this package is insufficient, considering the needs of the agricultural sector, whose main segment, horticulture, is suffering from the full impact of the coronavirus crisis with losses in export earnings. Also, the sector has to cope with the ravages of locusts, which threaten the harvest of staple foods and weaken the country’s food situation.
Agriculture accounts for 40% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 80 per cent of national employment, mainly in the rural areas. Despite continuous population growth, agricultural productivity has stagnated in recent years. The Kenyan government last met the Maputo Declaration target in the 2011/2012 fiscal year.
Kenya’s GDP from agriculture decreased to 204265 Million KES in the fourth quarter of 2019 from 221698 Million KES in the third quarter of 2019. GDP from agriculture in Kenya averaged 215377.91 Million KES from 2009 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 334943 Million KES in the first quarter of 2019 and a record low of 142195 Million KES in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Trading Economics.
The country has the largest, most diversified economy in East Africa. Agriculture in Kenya is large and complex, with a multitude of public, parastatal, non-governmental and private sectors.
Latest economic analysis for the region by the World Bank predicts that Covid-19 pandemic could cost as much as $79 billion in output losses for 2020.
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