By: Waithaka Kariuki
The East Africa Farmers Federation is calling for more synergy in addressing challenges affecting agriculture chiefly among them being climate change.
Under the able Leadership of chief executive officer Stephen Muchiri, the federation cited negligible attention accorded to agriculture despite it being the backbone of our economy.
“Government pays lip service to agriculture because ever since Maputo and Malabo declarations the Kenyan Government has not allocated more than 3% of the national budget to agriculture. And what reaches the ground is a partly two percent because of other government related issues.
In terms of climate change, of all the funds that are committed globally, less than 2% reaches the farmers.
Almost 80% of the funds goes to mitigation other than adaptation.
One of the output of the project is to come up with bankable projects around adaptation that can be funded and can attract investment.
Already at the global level we have adaptation funds that are not being utilized simply because the players in agriculture are always left out in climate change discussions.
There hasn’t been enough time to mobilize expertise around agriculture thereby their ideas around adaptation have been left out.
“Look even at the budgetary provision, agriculture receives a partly 3% and in fact what actually reaches the farmer is just above 2%%. We need to shift gears on this,”
On his part the Chairman of East Africa Farmers Federation Philip Kiriro called for a shift from climate change mitigation to climate change adaptation.
EAFF in partnership with Pan African Climate Justice Alliance has organized a Regional Workshop on Supporting Needs-Based Advocacy on Climate Adaptation in Africa in Nairobi.