Farmers in Kenya could be in line for billions pledged by the Gates Foundation, with the billionaire pledging $1.4 billion (Ksh180 billion) to help small-scale farmers access technologies to help them deal with extreme weather changes.
In a statement, the Gates Foundation announced that the funds will be spread over four years and used to expand access to innovations that help farmers across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia become more resilient.
That will include boosting crop yields and livestock production, and also providing digital advisory services and restoring degraded land.
“Smallholder farmers are feeding their communities under the toughest conditions imaginable,” Gates, the foundation’s chair, said in the statement.
“Investing in their resilience is one of the smartest, most impactful things we can do for people and the planet.”
As Kenya is part of sub-Saharan Africa, its farmers are likely to be among the beneficiaries. According to the Gates Foundation, the money will help to address the funding gaps that have challenged global food systems.
In choosing small-scale farmers, Gates noted that such farmers grow more than a third of the world’s food, are at the frontline of weather extremes from droughts to floods, yet less than one per cent of all public climate finance goes into helping them.
This funding is set to be in line with Gates’s renewed push for a pivot in climate strategy, away from emission targets and towards helping the poor. It also advances the foundation’s goal of lifting millions from poverty by 2045.
Small-scale farming in Kenya
While Kenya is yet to conduct a full agricultural census, a 2019-2029 strategy document by the Ministry of Agriculture estimated that there are about 4.5 million small-scale farmers in Kenya.
This comprises 3.5 million crop farmers, 600,000 pastoralists, and 130,000 fisherfolk. Another source, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), suggests the number of smallholder farmers is more than 7.5 million.
By definition, a small-scale farmer owns or cultivates less than 5 hectares (12 acres) of land, primarily for subsistence and local markets, using family labour and limited capital or mechanisation.
In Kenya, these farmers produce most of the country's food, roughly 75 to 80 per cent of the total agricultural output. They often depend on rain-fed systems rather than irrigation.
Rift Valley has been listed as the region with the most small-scale farmers, with 1,241,482 farmers recorded. The Eastern region has about 888,675 farmers, with the Coastal region having 235,779 small-scale farmers.
