Friday, August 30, 2013
Government will make agriculture profitable, says President Kenyatta
President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at the Co-operative bank of Kenya stand after opening the 2013 Mombasa International Show. Mombasa International Show. The President said his government would soon initiate an agricultural revolution to help Kenyan farmers. PHOTO/FILE NATION
President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday said that Government will initiate an agricultural revolution in the country.
This, he said, will transform farming into a commercial enterprise.
The President said although Kenyan farmers make meagre profits from their labour, his government is committed to ensuring all farmers irrespective of landholding make a decent income out of agriculture.
He said the Government would transform agriculture from a modest subsistence affair of minimal prospects into an enterprise with diverse opportunities in finance, investment, processing, trade and other commercial services besides the traditional farming.
He said strategies for achieving this agenda include expanding access to finance, stabilising farm input prices and enhancing their availability.
Others include mechanising agriculture and increasing arable land in the country by initiating irrigation schemes.
He added that the Government will complement these strategies by directing private investment in the sector.
VALUE ADDITION
This will be done through provision of appropriate incentives as well as intensifying value-addition for all sectors such as livestock, fisheries and agro-forestry.
President Kenyatta was speaking when he officially opened the Mombasa International Show.
The event was also attended by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.
The president said integration of the East African region would provide a sizeable market for the region’s products and services, attract investment and create employment for the youth.
He urged the East African Community states to unite to establish joint processing plants for value addition for products such as tea, coffee and other crops.
This would make the products to compete in the world markets and avoid exploitative tendencies of global traders and middlemen.
FREE MOVEMENT
He praised the decision reached Wednesday to allow free movement of goods, services and people within the East African Community member states of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.
The decision was reached by Presidents Kenyatta, Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame of Rwanda during a regional infrastructure conference in Mombasa Wednesday.
President Kenyatta said citizens were now free to travel unhindered using national identity cards, student identity cards, voters’ cards and other official identification documents.
He said continued disunity among regional states was counterproductive, noting a lone ranger policy would not help regional states to develop economically and uplift the livelihoods of their people.
He noted that many ethnic communities in the region such as the Maasai, the Teso and the Somali, among others, live across territorial borders and interact with ease in social and economic activities.
President Kenyatta called on Kenyans to unite and exercise discipline and focus on issues of development instead of spending quality time politicking.
He said his Government was committed to cooperate and work with all county governments to expand economic activities such as agriculture and value addition of products in order to increase revenues, achieve food security and create wealth.
Speaking during the occasion, President Museveni said the greatest strength and resource for the East African states was the integration of the 150 million citizens into a common market.
He decried tribalism and religious intolerance as evils that have caused underdevelopment and called for greater integration among the people of East Africa.
President Museveni also called for adoption of modern agricultural practices complemented with industrialisation, service industry and ICT to spur greater economic growth in the region.
MUNYASYA MUSYA (PSCU)
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