Coffee farmer Gabriel Kimwaki from Nyeri County, in central Kenya, is considering “giving up farming altogether”. He says the returns are too low “and with every harvesting season, I am making less and less profit.”
His is not a unique story. Francis Njuguna, an agricultural extension officer in the area, told IPS that while it is still difficult to quantify, “more farmers are shifting to food crops. The cash crop business is proving to be too risky for small-scale farmers.”
Kenya was reclassified as a middle-income country in early October, but as it to terms with its new ranking, it is becoming clear that status alone will not result in fewer people going to sleep hungry. There is still a great need to address the plight of the poor, as agriculture remains the backbone of the economy. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, based on a five-year average from 2009 to 2013, agriculture’s contribution to GDP is estimated at 25.4% — up from 24.1%.
The contribution that small-scale farmers like Kimwaki make cannot be overemphasised with government statistics showing that small-scale production accounts for at least 75 percent of the total agricultural output and 70 percent of marketed agricultural produce.
Economic analyst Jason Braganza says: “The move to middle-income status was as a result of using better data from high-performing sectors.” The sectors include agriculture, telecommunication, real estate and manufacturing — the latter sector’s contribution to GDP has risen from 9.5 percent to 11.3 percent, according to Braganza.
What the revised GDP revealed, Braganza said, “is that the country is worth much more than what was previously recorded.” GDP is now estimated at $53.4 billion compared to $42.6 billion before, making Kenya the ninth-largest economy in Africa, up from the 12th position.
Gross national income rose to $1,160, up from an estimated $840 before the revision. According to the World Bank, a country is classified as middle income if its gross national income per capita — a nation’s GDP plus net income received from overseas — surpasses $1,036.
While this has been hailed as a move in the right direction, policy analyst Ted Ndebu told IPS that this does not mean that Kenya is “rich and that it has risen above its social economic challenges.”
World Bank statistics show that more than four out of 10 Kenyans live in poverty. The country has a population of 44.3 million. With an economic growth rate of 5.7 percent, Ndebu said that the country “is still a long way off from a double-digit growth rate of at least 10 percent as outlined in the Vision 2030, the country’s economic blueprint.”
Braganza explained that revising the GDP or rebasing the economy is a purely “statistical exercise. It provides a better understanding of the economy but in itself, it does not change people’s poverty status.”
But he added that based on the new statistics, “the government has a better understanding of which sectors are driving the growth of the economy. But it does not mean that fewer people are sleeping hungry.”
He said that economic growth alone would not eliminate poverty.
“Growth must be accompanied by development. It is development that reduces poverty because it addresses issues like access to education, health services, jobs and so on,” Braganza said.
He said there were many factors that were not captured in statistics and income bracketing is not always a true representation of the people’s wellbeing. “That is why household surveys are important. They show you the conditions under which people are living.”
