President William Ruto’s administration seems to be shooting itself in the foot as the agricultural sector faces under-funding as per the Budget Policy statement and surging pending bills.

Although the Bottom-UP Economic Transformation agenda seeks to position agriculture as the economic driver and ensure food security, the ambitious plan is being hampered by low allocation in the forthcoming budget.

Speaking during the National Assembly Liaison Committee’s forum yesterday, the departmental committee for Agriculture and Livestock chair John Kinyuithia noted that the sector is lagging behind in terms of development.

Tea and coffee among other products, according to him, still require subsidies for them to be more competitive. The high cost of production serves as a barrier.

Last year, the committee observed very quickly that the sector is terribly underfunded, despite being a very important sector in this country.

“The budget that has been funded by the Ministry is of Sh103.2 billion, but the sector has been awarded by Budget Policy Statement (BPS) Sh56.1 billion, giving a deficit of 10.1. That means we are going to be strangled. The chairman highlighted that there are plans to transform the sector but the factor remains a huge challenge.

In the sugar sub-sector, sugar deliveries, according to the data by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), rose from 874,000 tonnes in the third quarter of 2023 to 2.5 million tonnes during the review period which Ruto said resulted to increased sales providing the Sh150 million bonuses to Mumias sugar cane farmers. He mentioned that the sector is seeking to sell sugar in sucrose content, an ambitious goal that in this case needs a proper facilitation to be implemented.

The leather industry which results from dairy farming also remains dormant despite having huge potential in pumping more revenue to the government. Kinyuithia, argues that Kenya mostly exports live cattle to the regional markets locking away opportunities emanating from skin and hides.

The country currently has the leather tanning facility at Kenani in Thika town that has the capacity to employ up to 1,200 Kenyans while facilitating value addition to the products but for that to happen, they would require a total 1.667 billion.

“After Kenai has started operations, as a country we would have to sit down and make a decision on whether to continue exporting live animals, because when you export live animals, you export the benefits that you can get,” Kinyuithia said.

“To supply quality hides and skins, we need what we call flares. Flares have been traded in this country, about 733 of them, these flares, they have been provided with equipment, and we have 680 slaughtering points,” he explained.

National Assembly Deputy Speaker, Gladys Boss Shollei, said the only reason why it is not working is because “we don’t have modern abattoirs.”

“For a hide to be capable of purchase at a professional level, it should not have a single hole, so all the abattoirs that you see are the ones that are not capable of producing together, because it cuts badly,” she explained.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the exported hides, you can see even the length of the roots not a single place has been cut, so I think we would advise them to spend money on the abattoirs first before they can talk about the abattoirs, because it won’t happen,” shollei added.

Still under dairy farming, the New Kenya Co-operative Creameries (New KCC) which has for a while been bailed out by the government still wants more capitation to help improve its activities.

Kinyuithia said the facility which plays a critical role in stabilising the prices of milk in the country has a couple of idle spaces which can be used to accommodate improved machines and other equipment which would help boost the sector at large as the current machines are old.

“So KCC has a lot of idle facilities. We need not only the improvement of processing efficiency, we also need to bring in some level of regional marketing to locate KCC farmers who are producing milk in those areas especially if we are to achieve a GMR of refrigeration per kilo,” he added.

Currently the government is in the process of procuring about 230 milk coolers to help in the preservation of the products while awaiting processing.

This number is, however, smaller by more than a half- from 600, which the government was initially eyeing from Canada, a factor that has been influenced by the US economic and social reforms.

“So, what has been happening is trying to vitalise as we move on, trying to change the processes to make them more efficient so that we improve on the turnover of what products we get,” Kinyuithia highlighted.