Lobby calls for increased funding to agriculture

A farmers’ lobby wants county governments to raise their budgetary allocations to agriculture to fight the perennial problem of food shortage in some parts of the country.

Speaking in Nairobi a day after the Treasury released Sh88 billion for development expenditure, the Kenya National Farmers Federation chief executive, Dr John Mutunga, called on the devolved units to make farming a priority in their spending.

“There are still many problems facing agriculture in this country including poor allocation of resources. The entire sector needs to be re-looked at if we have to improve the plight of farmers and lift them from abject poverty,” Dr Mutunga said on Monday.

The organisation asked county governments to work closely with farmers in order to understand the problems facing them at the grassroots level.

AGRICULTURE A MATTER OF DEBATE

Funding agriculture has been a matter of national debate for years with experts warning that limited allocations have affected the country’s economic growth.

Dr Mutunga said devolved funds in the past, such as the Constituency Development Fund, were hardly used for farming, limiting Kenya’s effort to address food insecurity.

The Jubilee Government promised to increase funding to agriculture in the national budget in efforts to ensure adequate food stocks.

Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Devolution and Planning has provided relief food, which has included 6,900 bags of maize, 24,500 of beans, 53,100 of rice, 5,800 cartons of cooking oil and 4,020 bales of nutritious meal for children.

This, experts say, is a situation that can be avoided if more investments are made into the agriculture sector.