President William Ruto has used his own experience as a farmer to explain why he believes Kenya’s food security challenges must be addressed at the farm rather than at the point of sale.
Speaking at an Agriculture and Food Security town hall in Nairobi on Thursday, Ruto said his commitment to farming was personal, revealing that prolonged periods away from his farm affect him physically.
"I am also speaking as a farmer. And if there is one thing that I am very proud of, is that I am a farmer, and I love farming," Ruto said.
The President said farming had become such an important part of his life that he struggles to stay away from his farm for long.
"In fact, many days when I don't go to the farm for like three weeks, I really get sick because the farm is a very special place," he said.
Ruto was speaking at Jamhuri Park, where he engaged farmers on his administration’s agricultural policies and its plans to strengthen food production.
He said agriculture had been among the areas where his administration made specific commitments when it took power in 2022.
According to Ruto, those commitments were set out in the government’s manifesto to give Kenyans a basis for assessing its performance and holding it accountable.
One of the main changes, he said, was the decision to rely on proper farmer data when designing and implementing agricultural programmes.
Ruto said the government had expanded its digital registration system, with 8.9 million farmers now captured on the platform.
He said the information had enabled the government to establish how many farmers are in the country while also making it easier to distribute agricultural inputs to the intended beneficiaries.
The President said access to subsidised fertiliser had also been tied to vouchers issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.
He said the system had helped keep the subsidised input away from people who do not farm and middlemen who had previously found ways to benefit from the programme.
Beyond counting farmers, Ruto said the data was giving the government a better understanding of the crops and livestock produced across the country.
He said farmers could now be identified according to their commodities, including tea, goats and maize, allowing the government to plan its agricultural interventions with more accurate information.
Ruto said another major shift in the government’s approach was to concentrate support on increasing production instead of trying to reduce food prices through subsidies at the consumption stage.
He recalled the situation in 2022 when a two-kilogramme packet of maize flour was selling for Sh250, saying the government at the time sought to tackle high prices by supporting consumers.
Ruto said that approach could not provide a lasting solution because the source of food was the farm.
"We said that is not how to solve the food security problem. You don't solve the food security problem by going to the supermarket because unga does not come from the supermarket. Unga comes from the farm. So if you want to intervene, the best place to intervene is at the farm," Ruto said.