Deep Roots

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Moving from destitution to

self-sufficiency: family farming

resilience and food security in Kenya

Dr Johnson Irungu, Director of Crops Management and Tom Dienya, Head of Food Security

and Early Warning Unit, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries; and Esther Musyoka, Monitoring

and Evaluation Officer, National Agricultural Accelerated Input Access Programme National Secretariat

griculture is the mainstay of Kenya’s economy.

The agricultural sector accounts for 61 per cent

of employment and 25 per cent of gross domestic

product. Over three-quarters of Kenya’s population lives

in rural areas and 61 per cent are dependent on agricul-

ture, livestock, fisheries and related production for their

livelihoods. In Kenya’s northern regions, pastoralism

accounts for 90 per cent of employment and 95 per cent

of family incomes.

Over 75 per cent of Kenyan farmers are smallholder subsist-

ence farmers who largely depend on natural rainfall for their

farming activities. Owing to many challenges that affect

Kenya’s agriculture, including climate change and unfavour-

able weather conditions, inadequate access to finance, low

use of recommended inputs, high cost of agricultural inputs,

poor rural infrastructure, inefficient marketing systems for

farm produce and poor farmer organization, among others,

most of these small-scale farmers are poor and vulnerable.

Stella Kosgei, a farmer in Sachangwan location, Molo

subcounty, Nakuru County is a successful farmer who was

once a typical small-scale subsistence farmer, farming solely

for household consumption. But through hard work and a

desire to move out of poverty, Mrs Kosgei has managed to

change her family’s livelihood through farming to become a

shining example of adaptive resilience from unproductive to

high-return agriculture; she shares her joy through the follow-

ing story as captured by the area agricultural extension officer,

Ernest Githinji.

It all began in May 2011 when Mrs Kosgei was selected to

be one of the beneficiaries of a government-sponsored, pro-

poor, voucher-based farm subsidy programme known as the

National Agricultural Accelerated Input Access Programme

(NAAIAP). Established by the Government of Kenya in 2009,

NAAIAP’s primary objective is to improve access and affordability of the key

agricultural inputs needed by millions of resource-poor, smallholder farmers

NAAIAP helps poor households break their poverty cycles through the

adoption of intensive, business-oriented farming systems

Image: NAAIAP

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