The government has committed to fully implement the Land Commercialisation Initiative (LCI), which will put huge tracts of idle land into agricultural use as it seeks to increase food production and bridge the food deficit in the country.
State Department for Crops Development Principal Secretary (PS) Kello Harsama said that the government has large parcels of land under parastatals and other government organisations which are lying idle and can be cultivated to produce food for the country.
Speaking on Tuesday during the inaugural investors’ conference on the Land Commercialisation Initiative (LCI), the PS said that the motivation for the government to cultivate the idle land is because of the severe effects of the recent drought, which almost brought about a food crisis in the country.
“Recently we experienced the biggest food deficit the country has ever seen with a shortfall of over 10 million bags of maize,” said the PS, adding that in the past in such instances the government imported food from the region, but this time round even the neighbouring countries did not have food to export.
According to Harsama, those who were given the certificates to import duty-free maize could not get it from the region, with some being forced to import from as far away as Brazil and Vietnam, with the closest being South Africa, where Kenya faced competition from other countries like South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, and Angola.
The PS said that to remedy the food shortage in the country, the government has prioritised the utilisation of idle land by leasing it to local and international investors to produce food for the country and export it.
“The president has declared that for us to maximally utilise our land resources we are going to establish over 100 mega dams across the country to facilitate irrigation agriculture,” said Harsama.
The PS said that approximately 2.5 million acres of arable land held by public institutions remain unused, and to meet the country’s food demand, the strategy is to bring 500,000 acres of new land into production.
“The country has a deficit of 7.8 million bags of maize against a projected demand of 67 million bags of maize as of 2022,” said Harsama.
He explained that for the initial phase of the project, some of the parcels of land that the government has prioritised include Galana Kulalu, the Bura irrigation scheme, Egerton University, Kimabere Farm, Kirimum Field Unit, Masinga Farm, the Tana Delta irrigation project, and the Tana irrigation scheme.
“The Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) has over 1.5 million acres of land which is not utilised and as a government, we cannot allow such land to stay idle while it is enough to produce food to ensure that we move away from importing food,” said the PS.
Harsama said that the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) seeks to unlock 50 large farms with over 2,500 acres each, with over 150,000 acres put under food production.
“Some of the major agricultural commodities targeted are maize, rice, wheat, Irish potatoes, livestock, and fisheries and their products,” said the PS.
He explained that they are working closely with the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and other partners to ensure that they attract both local and international investors into the project to ensure its success and sustainability.
“Once we lease the land to the investors, we will give very strict conditions, which include removing the word idle. We don’t want to give the land to investors and then the land continues being idle,” said Harsama, adding that they are contemplating introducing fines for those who will not put the land into use.
World Bank Principal Country Officer Dan Kasirye said that their strategy under the IFC is to create markets and unlock the potential of key sectors, and for this particular strategy, they are helping the Kenya government unlock its land potential.
Kasirye said that land is a key sector for any development objective, as it is a key resource not only in agriculture but also in other sectors like industrialisation.
“It is our sincere hope that the strategy will be a success and that it will generate investments in the agri-business space,” said Kasirye, adding that they support private sector investments and that they will consider financing and partnering in any other way.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a
