Kenya
is a poor country, even after joining league of middle economy countries back
in 2014. According to UNICEF, 46% of Kenyan population lives below the poverty
line while 22.4% of the population live in extreme poverty from the statistics
of World poverty clock. The announcement placed us way ahead of Tunisia and
Ethiopia. That tells you that Kenya does not benefit from interest-free loans
anymore, although even before the bombshell we were not considered legible.
I
am a subscriber of, ‘agriculture is the backbone of our economy’. So, going by
the same then means we need to invest much in agriculture. Over the past years,
Kenya has implemented policies, came up with strategies and incentives to
support farmers. The state knows and values food security and nutrition, as
prioritized in the president’s Big 4 agenda. However, we still find about 10m
Kenyans struggling with food insecurity and poor nutrition. A lot is left
pending, calling for a second thought on the approach.
We
need to embrace technology and not just that, introduce machines to the farms.
When we borrowed the idea of genetically engineered seeds (GMO), it was doing
more harm than good to our local farmers. They encouraged use of chemicals like
glyphosate which contaminate food and water sources. It was also a threat to
the same soil we rely on and want to, for many years. And because we lacked a local
firm to produce the genetically modified organism seeds, the idea was turning
our farmers to dependants of the companies producing them. Finally it failed
and banned, so let’s try mechanization.
In
Kenya, our food products are not enough for our population. We are still left
with a deficit, larger portion of our population starving and some regions
having very little for consumption. We survive a hungry lot, unhealthy and
unproductive. It escalates to affect our industry manpower and productivity of our
nation, thus our gross domestic product. Introduction of machines for planting
& seeding, ploughing, harrowing, spraying and harvesting will boast
agriculture and probably double the produce. The yield land per unit of area
will definitely increase while minimising the labour needed. Machines are also
efficient and fast, unlike the usual use of ox-driven ploughs which leaves the
locals exhausted at the end of the day.
Machines
automatically makes us employ new farming techniques like reclaiming idle lands
and putting then under agriculture. Farmers will be relieved of the cumbersome
weeding because tractors dig deep eradicating the deep-rooted weeds, as well as
filling gullies to prevent erosion. The farmers who are mostly women and youth
will use their energies in other economic or development activities. It will
solve the problem of labour shortages in most of rural areas after many people
have migrated to urban areas in search of waged jobs. Gradually, the increased
produce will motivate farmers and will try commercial agriculture.
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