Browsing: Food production

The KNBS report shows that the price of onions (leeks and bulbs), white bread, cooking oil (salad) and tomatoes increased by 7.46, 4.71, 4.62 and 4.55 per cent, respectively, in December 2021. Interestingly, these are the most basic household food items you will find in most homes.

When prices go up as much as they have done, it means that most households will either have to find alternatives or make do without these basic food items altogether.

In an election year, this is not something that Kenyans are prepared for especially with the decimation of job opportunities and livelihoods caused by the pandemic.

On another front, the country faces further hardships as consumer power declines. With food becoming scarce, the country is in dire straits already. Food production in Kenya is far behind demand. …

Large-scale farmers usually own specialized and custom-built equipment and keep up with recent technological advancements. Those in the medium-scale farming system mostly hire machinery while for small-scale farmers, mechanisation is limited to a few farm operations like land preparation. Other operations are done manually. Private service providers offer mechanisation services for small scale farmers where the use of machinery is very low in relation to the medium and large-scale agricultural production systems.  

Most of Kenya’s livestock is raised in extensive systems with communal grazing and free-ranging of rain-fed rangelands. Intensive production is practised in the high rainfall areas, semi-intensive systems are found in semi-arid lands and extensively in arid areas. The use of mechanised livestock production systems is very low. However, the potential for mechanisation is high to meet the growing demand for livestock and livestock products.  …