President William Ruto urged Kenya to raise domestic food output at the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Summit in Nairobi on October 8, saying higher local production would cut the country’s food import bill.
He highlighted edible oils, fats, wheat and rice as the main items driving import costs and noted that Kenyans spend more than half of their income on food.
Ruto pointed to the government’s fertilizer subsidy programme, which has lowered the price of a 50-kilogram bag from about KSh7,000 to KSh2,000, and said more than 34 million bags have been distributed to farmers.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe confirmed that farmers can buy a subsidised 50-kilogram bag for KSh2,000 at National Cereals and Produce Board depots, calling the subsidy one of the sector’s most significant interventions.
The president also cited the digital farmer registration platform as a tool that improves targeting of inputs and strengthens production planning.
Ruto called on farmers to invest in irrigation and water-harvesting infrastructure, arguing that reliable water supplies would stabilise output, improve credit access and lower food prices.
“Rain is a blessing, but it cannot be our plan. Water must be our plan,” he said, stressing the need for water infrastructure after recent droughts.
He urged greater investment in value addition and branding, noting that Kenya sells tea as a commodity and should move to branded, higher-value products, saying “Kenya is a tea-producing country but we sell it as a commodity. We should brand it and add value to it.”
Trade Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui added that Kenya is using less than ten per cent of export opportunities in markets such as the Middle East and Europe.
The three-day summit, running from October 7 to 9 under the theme “Food sovereignty, jobs and shared prosperity”, also featured Ruto’s broader plan to transform agriculture into a food economy.
He reported that employment in the leather sector rose from 17,000 to 35,000 jobs and that the fisheries value of catch increased from KSh37 billion to KSh54 billion, supporting 1.6 million livelihoods compared with 1.2 million previously.
Ruto warned that coffee production remains at only a third of the target and that less than ten per cent of tea is exported after value addition.
He noted that commercial banks allocate roughly three per cent of their lending to agriculture and that one in six households is still food-poor.
The president rejected the classification of counties as “high potential” or “marginal”, insisting every county has a role in the agricultural transformation.
He said the success of the agenda will be measured by productive farmers, acres made productive and viable agribusinesses, not by the number of projects launched.
Ruto urged farmers to treat agriculture as a business by using certified seed, testing soil, keeping records and joining cooperatives, and called on the private sector and financiers to view Kenyan farmers as bankable.
He also encouraged young people to embrace modern agriculture as a source of jobs and wealth.
