Youth would embrace farming if parents stopped clinging to land

By Patrick Mbataru

Young people are increasingly finding agriculture appealing. Unfortunately, they face enormous problems, and that is where policy makers must step in.

Most people under 40 years have moved away from on-farm activities. Actual production has been left to the parents, mostly aged 60 years or more.

The dichotomy of labour roles in the countryside, between the young and old, mirrors the emerging orientation of economic productivity away from basic farming. Young people are engaging more in the profitable stages of the value chain, mostly in value adding activities like processing, packaging, brokerage and transport.

 In fact, government policies targeting young farmers should focus more on value adding activities. Yet the grave problem is the gripping control of farm production by ageing parents.

Cultural attitudes make it difficult for young people to participate in long-term agricultural production. Parents in many places do not allow eligible children full land rights, mainly because it is considered a bad omen to “be inherited” when one is still living.

Many parents fear that if they give land to their children, they will be abandoned as their children exploit the land. Parents therefore cling to land even in their twilight years as financial insurance, yet this greatly limits productivity.

Many parents are growing too old for meaningful agricultural production. They lack modern skills and the entrepreneurial attitudes necessary to enhance quantity and quality in the face of diminishing acreage.Watching them labour out with hoes and pangas does not inspire much hope in meeting food security. Besides lack of production skills, they may not understand the intricacies of the global agribusiness value chains.

To compound the problem, parents in Kenya actually socialise their children away from land. They educate them so that they can move out of what they consider farm “slavery”.

To many young people in central Kenya, for example, coffee is the symbol of rural drudgery. Few youths want to be associated with the rigours of coffee production — the disciplined husbandry, the grading that starts during picking in the rainy season, to the pulping factory — only to be paid peanuts at the end of the year. The glittering city is more alluring.

And that is not all. There is the punishing waiting for payment. Even if the younger generation would have the land rights, few would have the patience to wait for months to be paid. Most prefer to cultivate “three-month-crops”, like tomatoes that guarantee prompt payment.

This is the appropriate industry model for the highly fragmented rural firms. Being more educated and exposed, young people are aware of the folly of blind production. Their mantra is “you produce what you can sell” and not tie to selling what you have produced. Luckily for them, wealth creation in Kenya is steadily leaning towards off-farm activities.

Globalisation and liberalisation have gradually opened up international markets for high value agro-products. Emerging issues related to traceability, quality control, certification and even carbon crediting need a whole new schooling on the way we do agriculture.

A ballooning middle class, said to now stand at 32 per cent of the population, offers a huge market for quality agro-products. Note the increasing space for greens and agro-products in major supermarkets. Any supply manager in these supermarkets will tell you that a major constraint is to get reliable suppliers, both in quantity and quality.

There is an emerging market opportunities for carrot, wheat grass, cabbage juice and millet-ugali as a new health consciousness takes root. The new drive based on organic foods represents another wealth-creating opportunity.

The good news is that the older land-clinging generation is thinning out. In the high output highlands of Central, land is slowly being released through natural attrition, leaving their more entrepreneurial children to take over. Many young farmers also lease such land.

By Dr Mbataru teaches agribusiness at the School of Agriculture, Kenyatta University (pmbataru@gmail.com)

Reblogged from the Daily Nation Wednesday January 23, 2013

Call for applications for poultry incubator loans

The Youth Enterprise Development Fund is providing youth with egg hatching incubators on credit. Young Kenyans aged 18-34 may apply as individuals or in groups.

Specifications of the Incubator

• Has a capacity to hatch 528 eggs
• Is a fully computerized automatic hatching machine
• Has a 95% hatching rate
• Automated temperature and humidity control
• Is capable of hatching all types of eggs
• Occupies little space (0.98 x 0.74 x 1.06M)

Benefits of the credit facility

• No interest will be charged on loan
• Friendlier repayment period and monthly instalments
• Warranty: 3 years for spare parts and 2 years on labour
• Marketing and linkages facilitation
• Training on handling of incubator at no extra cost
• Linkage to livestock extension officers/veterinarians

Loan details

Cost of Incubator	Sh. 198,600
Management fee: 5% (payable upfront)	Sh.     9,930
Loan amount:	Sh. 208,530
Monthly installment for a period of 36 months	Sh. 5,517 (Sh. 198,600÷36 months)

Grace period: 3 months

Mode of repayment: By direct deposit to the YEDF bank accounts quoting the code.

MPESA Service

Eligibility: The applying group/individual must:

• Have electricity and power back up in case of power outages
• In case of a group, 70% of members must be youth and all group officials must be 18-34 years
• Individual youth borrower must be 18-34 years.
• Show evidence of ability to raise 5% of the cost of the hatchery, to be paid upfront

Group applicants must submit:

• Duly filled  loan application form
• Group’s registration documents
• Copies of IDs for ALL the members
• Duly filled form by guarantors (details of acceptable guarantors is indicated  in the application form)
• Group minutes authorizing the application.
• Evidence of operating a group bank account for 3 months
• Extract of recent business records.

Individual applicants must submit:

• Duly filled  loan application form
• Copy (ies) of IDs for ALL the owner (s)

• Duly filled form by two guarantors(details of acceptable guarantors is indicated in the application form)

• Recent bank statement for those already in business and an extract of recent business records
• Or recent certified copies of bank statement for individual borrowers

Those already engaging in poultry production as well as those who are keen on undertaking the business are encouraged to apply.

For applications forms, click here .

Find the original post here  www.youthfund.go.ke/index.php/downloads/cat_view/55-incubator-loan-application-forms

New agriculture laws will now end colonial-style farming

President Kibaki’s assent to three key agricultural bills sets the stage for the most far-reaching changes in the sector since independence. 

 By consenting to The Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Authority Bill 2012, The Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Bill 2012, and the Crops Bill 2012, he now sets the stage for the consolidation of functions of a number of allied ministries, the scrapping or merging of non-core state corporations and the commercialisation of profit-making ones. 

His signature has unified the 131 laws that have governed the sector and essentially removed from the law books the ubiquitous Agriculture Act, an 80-year old piece of legislation long blamed for the dismal performance of agriculture. The colonial regime created the statute to promote European farming at the expense of indigeneous Kenyans. 

The new laws, passed by Parliament during its final sittings, seek to transform farming into a professional, well-paying, internationally competitive and attractive to the youth. The agricultural sector is to drive Vision 2030. 

Depending on the preference of the next Government in setting its Cabinet, the ten allied ministries can now be collapsed into one or two, as envisaged in the initial drafts by the Agricultural Sector Coordination Unit , a multi-ministerial agency that has overseen reforms in the sector.
The ten subsectors are: Agriculture; Livestock; Land; Fisheries Development; Environment and Mineral Resources; Water Resources and Irrigation; Regional Development Authorities; Cooperative Development; Forest and Wildlife; and Development of Northern Kenya and Other Arid Areas.
Among parastatals facing the axe is the 63-year old Cereals and Sugar Finance Corporation. It is in debts, and its operation has often been questioned by Parliament. In fact, its liquidation has been inexplicably pending for over ten years.

Others are Sisal Board, Cotton Board, National cereals and Produce board, Coffee Board, Tea Board, Kenya Sugar Board, Pyrethrum Board, and Coconut Development Authority, Kenya Plant Plant Health Inspectorate Service, and Horticultural Crops Development Authority. 

Their functions will be taken over by a new powerful body, the Agriculture, Livestock and Food Authority. The Dairy Board, Kenya Meat Commission, Pig Industry Board, Pests Control Board, Kenya National Artificial Insemination Centre, will collapse into a Livestock Authority.
The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute will merge with other research institutions, including Kenya Triponomias Research Institute, Kenya Forestry Research Institute , Coffee Research Foundation, Tea Research Foundation, Kenya Sugar Research Foundation to form The Kenya Agricultural Research Organisation. 

The agricultural sector comprises over 60 parastatals. Already, reforms implemented in the last ten years have seen about 20 parastatals scrapped. “Some of the parastatals reproduce the work of others,” says Dr Sally Kosgei, Minister for Agriculture. 

Take the example of the Cereals and Sugar Finance Corporation; established by Parliament to raise money to lend to Government agencies for the purchase and production of grains and cereals. It is still in business despite the fact that the Government declared it insolvent about ten years ago.
“The corporation is dormant and technically insolvent,” said the Auditor General’s report 2008/9. As early as 1976, Parliament had singled it out among the corrupt parastatals. 

According to the new laws, profit-making parastatals will run as companies. “Every (parastatal) that carried out any commercial activity with the objective of making profit have twelve months to transform into a company and be registered as a company under the Companies Act so as to enable (it) carry on commercial activity.” 

The new law s discount any fears about job losses. “Any person who, at the commencement of this Act, is a member of staff of a former institution shall, on the appointed day, become a member of staff of ALFA on the same or improved terms and conditions of service as may be specified by the Cabinet Secretary”, the Act states.

Reblogged from the Star newspaper http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-103423/new-agriculture-laws-will-now-end-colonial-style-farming