Speaking after meeting state corporation heads and ministry officials at a Malindi hotel, the chairperson of the agriculture and livestock and committee in the National Assembly John Mutunga and the member of the Senate committee on agriculture, livestock and fisheries Senator Hezena Lemaletian said that for Kenya to be food secure and sufficient, there was need for additional funding to the docket to enhance research and training.
Agriculture contributes to 25 percent of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs more than 40 percent of the country’s labour force but it was only being allocated a paltry three percent of the country’s budget.
MPs said the deficit threatens the implementation of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) as key areas like crop and livestock value chains suffer chronic underfunding, raising food security concerns among Kenyans.
Under the 2026 Budget Policy Statements (BPS), the Ministry has been allocated Ksh. 75.49 billion comprising Ksh. 29.74 billion for recurrent expenditure and Ksh. 45.74 billion for development which represents 2.7 percent of the Sh. 2.8 trillion national budget.
Mutunga who is also the MP for Tigania West lamented that the country was spending more than Ksh. 500 billion annually on food product imports, money which would have been invested in advancing agricultural technology to the Kenyan farmer to increase yields and produce enough for local consumption and surplus for the export market.
“We have agreed on a strategy of negotiating with the National Treasury on what really should be given to agriculture as a sector in terms of the importance and the needs within the sector. If we are going to do import substitution, because we are spending Ksh. 500 billion every year importing food, then we can use a bit of that money producing food and then guarantee whatever we are given as a sector is going to increase production of food in the country,” he said.
He also said that, currently, there were more than 15 bills before the National Assembly
“Today we’ve discussed 15 executive bills, 13 private member bills but some of them have not landed in the house, some have been discussed and some also rejected and among those we have completed work on is the Food and Feed Safety Regulatory bill and these bills are extremely essential for the growth and development of the sector,” he said.
Senator Hezena on her part said that the senate was also working on various bills and that some will be harmonized to prevent duplication.
“We have various legislative proposals and agendas that are before the senate. Some have been approved, some have been rejected and some are at the mediation stage and the legislations are geared towards strengthening our agricultural sector in the country,” she said.
She added that there was a shortage of staff in most agricultural parastatals and funding of agricultural colleges was also a huge problem.
“Something that has come up is that there is lack of funding for the education of students in agriculture and we are going to work on that as the legislative arm especially the young parliamentarians to lobby for funding so that our agriculture students across the country get as much funding as the rest of the students in the other sectors of development in the country,” she said, adding that Kenya needed to be a producing economy and not a consuming economy.
