Poverty in Kenya has worsened consistently over the past two decades, despite the antipoverty measures by the government and international development agencies. Currently, over 60% of the Kenyan population is estimated to be below the poverty line, with the majority of the poor residing in rural areas, where agriculture is the main source of livelihood. Lack of progress in poverty reduction is partly due to inadequate implementation of previous anti-poverty measures and partly because the measures paid insufficient attention to the development of agriculture, the backbone of the Kenyan economy. In particular, transfer of new technologies to farmers may have suffered due to under-financing of the national agricultural extension system (Bindlish and Evenson, 1997). Low agricultural productivity and poor marketing of farm produce are some of the causes of rural poverty. Low productivity is attributed to the use of traditional farming methods, poor soil fertility, unpredictable weather, high costs of inputs, poor quality of seed and lack of credit facilities. These multiple setbacks have led to food shortages, underdevelopment of farms, low farm incomes, and poor nutritional status, especially among children, increasing further the population’s vulnerability to poverty in the future.

Global Maize Program

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INT1320

CIMMYT Staff Publications Collection