Increase agriculture budget allocation to 10%, state urged

John Mutunga, the National Assembly Agriculture Committee chairperson, said the agriculture budgetary allocation is below expectation. This is bearing in mind the emphasis given to agriculture in the country. 

He told the Star that agriculture is always allocated about 3.2 per cent and the highest it has ever gone was 4.5 per cent.

“Functions like research are fairly dependent on foreign or donor money. Innovations, transformative technologies and extension services need money. For the sector to achieve its full potential and be able to provide food and nutrition security, the government should allocate at least 10 per cent of its budget as provided by the Maputo Declaration which Kenya is party to,” the Tigania West MP said.

He spoke on Wednesday during the EABL Agri forum on regenerative agriculture at a Nairobi hotel.

Heads of state and government met in 2003 in Maputo and made a political commitment to allocate at least 10 per cent of their national budget to agriculture.

The pledges were made in the Maputo Declaration under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), but 20 years later, many countries, including Kenya, are far from meeting the 10 per cent target.

Mutunga said they are consulting with the Ministry of Agriculture and other institutions and entities within the agricultural sector to lobby for an increase in the agricultural budget.

“We are lobbying and discussing with the National Treasury who produce the budget policy statement so that they can provide a wider and bigger share for agriculture. That is the only way we can say agriculture will keep supporting the economy,” he said.  

The committee chairman said agriculture is not recognised in the budget the way it is done in terms of supporting employment, food security and the economy.

He said there is a divergence and no correlation between what is given to agriculture in terms of budget and what agriculture does for this country.  

Mutunga said the sector is the main forex exchange earner and the main informal employer.

“But when you come to the budget, it is not among the first 12 priorities in budgetary allocation. It comes close to number 12 or 13 with around 3.2 per cent budgetary allocation,” he said.

“Agriculture rarely gets to five per cent. The highest we have done is 4.5 per cent budgetary allocation. But when these discussions are done at the Treasury level, they bring in infrastructure and rural development which gets close to 10 per cent of the budget.” 

Mutunga said that to address the challenges facing the sector, the country should factor in issues of soil health, innovation and technologies, transfer of these technologies, capacity building within crop and livestock development, and promotion and marketing within agriculture.

“Failure to do so, we may never get there soon. For the sector to achieve its full potential, the government should allocate not less than 10 per cent," he said.

"This can help in increasing the GDP in agriculture and the country’s economy. There are countries that allocate double digits to the agriculture sector because of the importance of the sector to their GDP.”