Inadequate funding within the agricultural sector remains one of the major setbacks to the sector achieving its full potential.
According to a 2019 World Bank report, while Kenya represents a vibrant and enabling market for Fintech, the more traditional banking that is needed to service commercial agriculture is lacking. About 4% of commercial bank lending is for agribusiness, despite most Kenyans being employed in agriculture or agribusiness.
“The productive sector is agriculture, if you invest in agriculture everything will come back because what we export everything is agriculture and it makes sense to invest more in the sector.” Said Principal Secretary of the State Department for Agricultural Research Hamadi Boga.
The PS said the budgeting is a public process where public participation must be appreciated to enable the government see what to prioritize or not, and hailed President Uhuru Kenyatta for putting in effort to make ensure the sector is meeting the country’s expectation.
“We should all demand that we all meet the demands through public participation, it’s not only the Ministry budgeting but even the parliament.’ Said Mr. Boga
In a story published in a local daily, Nairobi-based economic analyst Robert Shaw cited rising political temperatures which are making investors nervous as many adopt a wait-and-see approach on the end results in the war against corruption, three years before an election year. Kenya’s economy is said to have performed very well in 2018, having expanded by 6.3 per cent from 4.9 per cent in 2017.
The growth was attributable to increased agricultural production, accelerated manufacturing activities, sustained growth in transportation and vibrant service sector activities.
