Your Exellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Madam Chair,

On behalf of my country and my delegation I would like to express my gratitude and commend the executive council for its efficiency in organizing this meeting.
As you may be aware, like many countries in Africa the Kenyan economy is predominantly agricultural based. IFAD is one of the most strategic partners in the reforms and development of this sector. Over the years IFAD has supported 15 programmes and projects in this sector to the tune of about US dollars 200 million. Kenya’s cordial relationship with IFAD was greatly enhanced by the visit the President Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, last year.

Madam Chair,

Without belaboring to repeat what has been mentioned before by many speakers, we in Kenya believe that for our economies to grow fast enough to get our people out of poverty and food insecurity, we must invest more in agriculture. As Governments in Africa we need not only live to our Maputo declaration of allocating 10 percent of our annual national budget to agriculture, but also increase the budget to not less than 13 percent by 2012. This is what we were spending in 1960s and 1970s when our economies were growing by over 10 percent and we were almost food secure.  Despite the challenges of drought, and refugees from neighboring countries, we in Kenya are now allocated 11 percent of our national budget to agriculture in 2011 and are planning to increase to 12 percent this year. 

A large proportion of this budget is funded by development partners including donors.

For us to eradicate poverty and food insecurity from our people, we have to transform our agriculture and move from subsistence to commercial farming, where farmers undertake agriculture as business that earns them enough income to prosper.

We believe that this transformation to take place we need to focus value chain based strategic areas that will bring about increased agricultural productivity and incomes.  In these regard we have identified 6 priority thrusts i.e, (i) inputs, (ii) credit, (iii), irrigation, (iv) markets, (v), infrastructure (vi) institution for research, extension and value addition.

Cognizance of the low level of application of inputs in smallholder agriculture we believe that fertilizer, seeds, and agrochemical must be available and affordable to farmers, even if it means some level of subsidy by our Governments. In Kenya, we are implementing value chain broad based programme to increased access of inputs to both resource poor farmers and over the last three years over 600,000 farmers to move from subsistence to kilimo biashara (farming as a business).

Aware of the need for credit in any business we believe that arrangements must be put in place to ensure that all farmers can access affordable credit even if we need to change our credit laws in favour of farming enterprises. In Kenya we are reviving our agricultural credit institutions, implementing targeted credit guarantee schemes and commodity based funds.

For smallholder agriculture to move from subsistence to commercially oriented agriculture we must ensure that farmers have good access to markets for their produce, even if it means instituting Guaranteed Minimum Returns and/or farm insurance schemes. In Kenya we have started a programme to build modern fresh produce markets in every constituency and reform the cooperative movement for marketing.

Aware of the changing patterns of weather and move from high dependence on rain fed agriculture, we must invest in irrigated agriculture. In Kenya we have set a target of expanding our irrigated agriculture from the current 150,000 hectares to at least 1 million hectare by 2020.  Last financial year, the Government  allocated US $ 150 million for expanded irrigation programme to achieve this target.

These programmes will need strong agricultural institutions for extension, research and innovations, credit, agro-processing, and marketing so that we can exploit the economies of scale for efficiency and effectiveness of farming enterprises. In doing so we should move our farming enterprises from producers of primary raw material to producers of value added products ready for consumption.

Details of these priorities areas are elaborated in our agricultural development strategy that was launched by his Excellency the President in 2010, whose vision is a food secure and prosperous nation with innovative, commercially oriented, and modern agriculture.  

Madam Chair,

In the current global context, the bigger resource envelope provided for under the ninth Replenishment is commendable and additionally demonstrates IFAD's role in supporting efforts to move agriculture up the global development agenda. My delegation recognizes and  appreciate the importance given by the negotiation to strengthening the Fund’s contribution to scaling up of ; private-sector engagement; gender equality and women’s empowerment; climate change and sustainable management of environmental resources; project efficiency; country-level decentralization; fragile states; national monitoring and evaluation systems; South-South and triangular cooperation, to IFAD's next programme.  No doubt this is a daunting task and we call on IFAD partners to assist in the implementation of the prioritized investment framework encompassed in the 9th Replenishment. In this respect, Kenya wishes to partner with IFAD in this endeavor by pledging US $, 500,000 to the 9th replenishment, up from the US $ 100,000 we were contributing in the 8th replenishment.

I thank you Ladies and Gentlemen for your kind attention

23 February 2012