Growing up, we were taught in primary school that “agriculture is the backbone of our economy”. This fact was drilled down our brains so many times and tested in almost all our Geography, History and Civics exams.
Back then, the phrase had a different meaning to our young developing brains. But analysing Kenyan’s economic statistics today, we find every reason to believe that indeed agriculture is at the heart of our economic development as a country.
More than 80 per cent of Kenyans living in the rural areas are engaged in agricultural activities; with agriculture contributing about 32 per cent to our GDP according to the Kenya Economic Survey 2017.
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), however, estimates that agriculture’s direct contribution to our GDP is about 26 per cent; and another 27 per cent indirect contribution through linkages with other sectors.
The green economy further contributes about 65 per cent to our total export earnings in Kenya; and employs about 40 per cent of our population.
On the other hand, United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimates that 46 per cent of Kenyan population lives below poverty line. 11 million Kenyans (equivalent to 22.4 per cent of our total population) are living in extreme poverty today, according to World Poverty Clock, which tracks real-time poverty levels across the world. This number gives Kenya a 1.75 per cent share of the global population of people living below the extreme poverty line threshold of $1.90 per day.
Still on the gloomy side of things, about 10 million other Kenyans are subject to chronic food insecurity and poor nutrition. This is happening in this day and age yet the 2010 Constitution clearly states in Article 43 Section 1 (c) that: Every person has the right to be free from hunger and have adequate food of acceptable quality.
Amidst the above bag of mixed fortunes, Kenya rebased its GDP in 2014 growing our economy size by 25 per cent to join the league of middle income countries. This elicited intense debate among policy makers and other stakeholders from both local and international institutions.
The general feeling was that our economy was still pegged on agriculture to a greater extent; and that we would not be able to compete fairly on international trade with other middle income countries whose economies were driven by the manufacturing sector.
Since then, the government has been in hot pursuit of industrialisation by championing the manufacturing sector in order to fit into the middle class status in reality; and not just on paper.
However, in our quest to grow the contribution of the manufacturing sector to our GDP, we must keep in mind the fact that agricultural revolution must always precede an industrial revolution.
A nation must be able to feed its people first before it can concentrate on other development agenda. We need a healthy and energetic population for increased productivity by our workforce in the public and private sectors; which eventually translate to a growth in our GDP.
Hunger and malnutrition will only work to derail our progress as a nation if we do not address the food issue, and give it the priority it deserves in our policy agenda.
Taking a journey back the history lane, we learn that the evolution of human civilisation over the ages revolved around how people acquired food during the Stone Age; and how organised agriculture during the Agrarian Revolution in Mesopotamia and the British Agriculture Revolution in the 18th century influenced access and affordability of food.
All ancient civilisations were built on the food security agenda; after which people invoked their creative minds to innovate and develop new ways of doing things which resulted to modern industrialisation as we know it today.
Closer home in Kenya, the founding fathers of our nation recognising the role of agriculture in economic development, they allocated it a whole section in Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965; which opens with these words: “Agriculture is the dominant sector of the economy; encompasses the whole country and provides a living for the majority of Kenya families.”
As former US president Thomas Jefferson once stated; “Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness.”
Considering the food insecurity challenge in our country today, may be its time we revisited the true meaning of the old Kenyan adage of “agriculture is the backbone of our economy”.
Jeremy Riro, strategy consultant and financial analyst.
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