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The Nairobian

Worrying trend as more youth abandon farming

Smart Harvest

By Maureen Akinyi | Feb 16, 2019

**Climatic changes, low credit access** **and** **marketing challenges have resulted** to agriculture being shunned. [Photo, Standard]

More young farmers are opting to subsidise their income by engaging in other money making ventures, a trend threatening the country’s food security, says a new research.

Dr Laura Barasa, the lead researcher, says there is need for policies that foster processing and commercialisation of agriculture produce which will give farmers incentives not to abandon or sell off their farms.

Off farm activities

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“We are seeing the trend where more people are opting to be for instance boda boda riders or market traders instead of putting their labour into farming. And what they earn from this ‘off-farm’ activities, they use it to meet family needs like buying clothes, food, educating their children and they hardly invest in their farms,” says Dr Barasa, an economist and lecturer at the University of Nairobi, School of Economics.

This in turn results in lower agriculture productivity and therefore less food at the community and country level, notes the researcher.

Additionally, the research showed that climatic changes, low credit access and marketing challenges have resulted to agriculture being shunned as it is seen as a high-risk with low returns.

Policy shift

The findings show that about 20 per cent of households engage in off-farm activities (mining, government jobs eg teachers, manufacturing, transport, trade, agro-processing, retail trading etc).

Compared to on-farm households, the total value of agricultural harvest for households participating in off-farm activities is about 83 per cent lower for Tanzania and 29 per cent lower for Uganda. In contrast, consumption expenditure for households participating in off-farm activities is about 26 per cent greater than for households engaging in on-farm activity for Tanzania only.

Way forward?

“The future of smallholder farming in Kenya lies in measures taken to stimulate rural non-farm economy. There is need to provide jobs for those exiting farming to minimise rural-urban migration; provide favourable rural investment climate to stop arable land being sold-off for real estate; and provision of public goods and institutional development,” says Joseph Opiyo, a senior research assistant and Agriculture Economist at Egerton University, Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural policy and development.

The institute recently released a study titled, ‘How off-farm work and fertiliser intensification improves production outcomes among smallholder farmers in Kenya.’

The research looked at tea, maize and vegetable farmers’ likelihood to use fertiliser when actively engaged in farming or when working elsewhere to supplement their income.

It concluded that maize farmers are likely to engage in non-farm activities and use less fertiliser in their crops therefore reducing their earnings.

Food secure

“Non-farm work has put pressure on the availability of farm labour. If we are to be food sufficient we should start reversing this now. We need to recognise that both are important and look for ways to make both lucrative,” says Opiyo.

This discussion is especially critical as Kenya pushes towards the Big Four Agenda with a push towards manufacturing and food security.

To arrest the situation, policy makers are now calling for a policy shift and more investment in agriculture.

“We should think of agriculture and manufacturing as complementing and not as competing entities. They are co-dependent and should be looked at that way. We need to encourage farmers to continue with production through subsidies eg seeds, fertiliser, value addition, commercialising of agricultural output and cash transfer programs,” says Dr Barasa.

Tanzania and Uganda have recently implemented policies that promote off-farm employment as a path to growth. The East African Community has also been keen on formulating harmonized policies aimed at increasing productivity and farmers’ incomes.

Other researchers in the study are Bethuel Kinyanjui, Stephene Maende and Faith Mariera from the University of Nairobi. The stakeholders who gathered in Nairobi to discuss the research findings, want East African governments to increase budgetary allocations to Agriculture from below 5 per cent in Kenya, (4 percent in Uganda and a partly 0.85 per cent in Tanzania) to 10 per cent of government expenditures.