Kenya
Kenya: Agriculture
Key Facts
Kenya, east Africa’s economic powerhouse, lies on the western shores of the Indian Ocean and is bound to the north by Somalia, Ethiopia, and southern Sudan, to the west by Uganda and Lake Victoria, and to the south by Tanzania. Kenya has a population pushing 35 million.
Owing to its size, geographic position, annual rainfall range, and a territory shaped by waterways and tectonic activity, Kenya incorporates a staggering climatic, ecological, and edaphic diversity. Low lying coastal regions, with high coral content soil, give way to towering highlands of over 5000m blessed with rich, fertile, volcanic earth. River valleys and plains, covered in deep alluvial, swampy, and black cotton soils are in sharp contrast to the shallow and infertile land found in Kenya’s many semi-arid regions. Mean annual rainfall ranges from less than 250mm in semi-arid and arid areas to over 2000mm in high potential areas.
This diversity means that only about one third of the total land area of Kenya is agriculturally productive, this includes the Kenyan highlands, coastal plains and the lake regions. Semi-arid and arid lands are used, more often than not, for simple pastoral farming. However, only 8 percent of total land is being utilised for crop and feed production. There is a clear disparity between realised and potential cultivatable land available.
Despite all this, agriculture remains the dominant economic activity in the country, with approximately 70 percent of Kenyans living in rural areas and 75 percent of the population depending on agriculture for their livelihood. Agriculture is, in the main, labour-intensive, practised on smallholder family-operated farms without the use of cutting-edge technology. The majority of Kenya’s produce is consumed unprocessed or is processed using imported equipment.
The agricultural products able to be commercially grown in Kenya are as diverse as her land, and include cash crops such as coffee, tea, sisal and sugar, grains, cotton, tropical fruit, and coconuts; and staple crops such as maize, pulses, millet, bananas, sweet potatoes and potatoes. In terms of livestock production Kenya has a strong competitive advantage and the sub-sector represents a significant proportion of total national agricultural output. In 2004 there were approximately 12m cattle, 10m sheep, 12m goats and 830,000 camels. In addition to dairy produce and meat production - hides, skins and wool are manufactured for both domestic consumption and exportation and represent a key employment generator and export earner.
Kenya is Africa's leading tea producer, and fourth globally, behind China, India, and Sri Lanka. After tourism and tea, coffee is Kenya’s third leading foreign exchange earner. In addition, horticulture and floriculture have become prominent agricultural activities in recent years. Fresh produce accounts for approximately 30% of horticultural exports, and includes green beans, onions, cabbages, snow peas, avocados, mangoes, and passion fruit. Flowers exports include roses, carnations, statice, astromeria, lilies, and pyrethrum. Importantly, Kenya is the world's largest producer and exporter of pyrethrum, a flower that contains a substance used in pesticides. For export of the more perishable amongst these products, Kenya’s horticulture industry has benefitted from the large number of flights passing through Nairobi each day, while the port of Mombasa offers an ideal export point for products hardy enough to be sea-freighted.
Government Initiatives
- Kenya Vision 2030.
- Many financial and non-financial incentives for foreign investments
Opportunities
The sector has recently seen a number of reforms such as the abolishment of VAT on selected agricultural implements, machinery and transportation of unprocessed agricultural produce. In terms of agro-processing the government is promoting joint-ventures between foreign investors and their local counterparts. Some sugar and cotton processing factories have been earmarked for privatisation. Opportunities also exist in export-oriented agro-business, horticulture and processing of oil crops. In addition, there are excellent possibilities for investment in large-scale irrigation schemes. Lucrative opportunities also exist in Kenya's tea industry.