Boost for Food Security as Kenya Proposes Increase in Agriculture Budget

By The COAST Reporter

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

Kenya’s bicameral parliament has proposed to increase agriculture and livestock budgetary allocation to boost the country production so as to ease food stuff importation.

Speaking after meeting state corporation heads and ministry officials at a Malindi hotel, the National Assembly agriculture and livestock and committee chairperson Dr 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 if there was additional funding 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 and in the 2026/2027 the agricultural budget faces a Sh59 billion shortfall, with only Sh75.491 billion allocated against a required Sh135.355 billion.

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.

In the 2026/2027 budget highlights, the State Department for Agriculture has a ceiling of Sh59.99 billion against a demand of Sh107.362 billion.

Under the 2026 Budget Policy Statements (BPS), the Ministry has been allocated Sh75.49 billion comprising Sh29.74 billion for recurrent expenditure and Sh45.74 billion for development which represents 2.7 percent of the Sh2.8 trillion national budget.

Dr Mutunga, who is also Tigania West MP, lamented that the country was spending more than Sh500 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 Sh500 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.

Currently, according to him, there are more than 15 bills before the National Assembly for debate.

“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.

On her part, Senator Hezena 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. All the legislations are geared towards strengthening our agricultural sector in the country,” she said.

She explained 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.

“In the course of our discussions, and it is the MPs and senators who have pointed out that with the contribution that the ministry of agriculture makes in beyond 25 percent of our GDP, you would imagine that the budget that is allocated would be a bit commensurate with that contribution so that we can increase it even further and if we say this is the great pillar that we are going to depend on for growth and industrialization then you can’t allocate three percent of your budget to what you expect is going to be the goose that lays your golden egg,” she said.

“We’re not saying that we get increased budgets to consume it. We’re saying we get increased budgets to increase production and grow the country.”