Garissa residents have faulted last weeks budgetary allocations for agriculture and livestock sectors.
The government allocated agriculture a total of Sh46 billion in this year's budget.
Speaking in Garissa on Saturday, Kenya Livestock Marketing Council chairman Dubat Ali Amey called for increased budget allocation to the two sectors saying they were the backbone of the country's economy.
“We have prioritised tourism and other areas which leave us at the mercy of the foreigners,"he said.
"What if they start putting sanctions on us over flimsy reasons? Where does that leave our fate as a country?”
He said that injecting more money to agriculture and livestock as per the 2014 Malabo Declaration which Kenya is a signatory, would help bring down the cost of production.
This reduce the currently skyrocketing food prices in the country.
The Malabo Declaration set forth a series of concrete development goals to be reached by 2025.
They include achieving a six per cent annual agricultural growth rate and a 10 per cent agricultural expenditure share.
The stakeholders were speaking on the sidelines of the launch of the 'Ufugaji Bora, Maisha bora' social and behaviour change campaign in Garissa.
Garissa director for special programs Abdinoor Ole Hussein assisted by Livestock Marketing Systems deputy chief of party Simon Muli and George Wamae, senior market systems specialist at LMS launched the campaign.
The one year programme is jointly implemented by USAID and the county government.
The objective of the campaign is to promote positive behaviour change by addressing social and behavioural constraints, to increase animal yield levels.
Ole Hussein said the campaign was of social and economic benefit to the pastoralists as it increases their income and improves their livelihoods thus alleviating poverty.
He said that the norms being targeted in the campaign include promoting animal health technologies to increase the health and value of their livestock and using high quality feed for feeding their livestock.
Other targets are producers selling their livestock through aggregation channels like farmers groups and saccos and adopting improved hygienic milking, handling and preservation practices.
The also targeted to make livestock farmers to consume animal source foods from the purchase or own production.
The campaign will be carried out via educational programs, awareness campaigns, mass media presentations, publications and group discussions.
Joel Okal,the deputy director for livestock, said the programme was necessitated by realisation that the biggest setback for pastoral communities in realising Sh50 billion annual income potential, is bygone social and behavioural practices.
He said that the community response would lead to every shilling invested in livestock, translating to returns of Sh38 for cows, Sh36 for goats and Sh32 for camels for smallholder livestock producers.
Also present during the launch included John Kutwa,LMS county programme manager and the director of Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry Abdikadir Arab.
(Edited by Francis Wadegu)
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