Delivery of agriculture services is up to 23 per cent lower across counties, making the success of farmers a lottery on where they live.
In a 2023 survey of 37,600 Kenyans across all 47 counties, many of whom are farmers, Uasin Gishu and Elgeyo Marakwet retained their bread basket status emerging as the best-performing counties in agriculture with 63 per cent of sampled farmers approving of the work their county government was doing. Nairobi (40%) and the Northeastern counties of Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa with an average approval rating of 46 per cent were the lowest-ranked counties.
Researchers from Infotrak Research & Consulting Limited conducted their fourth series of the CountyTrak Performance Index in July and August 2023 which measures the performance of the current county governors during their first year in office. The survey talked to Kenyans in the country’s 290 constituencies and 1450 wards to ascertain Kenyan’s assessment of how well their county governments are doing and keep a scorecard of their performance on key performance indicators like agriculture, health, education, road, and transport efficiency, energy, trade, and tourism, among others.
Homa Bay was the most improved county in agriculture production and agriculture service delivery between 2020 and 2023 shooting up 27 places to rank 14 nationwide. This was driven by the launching of the Kigoto Maize Milling Plant within 100 days of the new administration being in office as well as investment in agriculture mechanisation through the Sh44 Million purchase of 10 new tractors fitted with modern land cultivating tools. The county is also investing in a cotton aggregation center and tractor transport system in Magare, Homa Bay West Ward as well as distributing 27,250kg of sunflower seeds to be planted by 7,000 farmers on more than 7,000 acres of farmland.
In contrast, Homa Bay’s sister counties of Siaya and Migori barely got a passing grade at 51 per cent approval.
Other counties that saw their agricultural production and agriculture services delivery increase markedly between 2020 and 2023 were Kirinyaga which jumped 19 places and into the top ten of the best-performing counties as well as Kitui which moved from 35th position to 18th, Nyandarua, which went up 17 places to 18 and Kiambu which moved from 45th position to 28th in the three years.
The major factors identified for these improvements were the introduction of modern farming practices in the form of improved seed varieties, fertilisers, and mechanisation, improved access to extension services, farmer training, and innovative approaches such as media-based agricultural education.
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