Challenges Facing the Implementation of Strategy for Revitalizing Agriculture (Sra)

Abstract

Agricultural Sector Programmes are an important vehicle for ensuring food security and increasing incomes for the rural poor. The government launched the Strategy for Revitalizing Agriculture (SRA) in March 2004 to address the poor performance of the agricultural sector. The strategy outlines the vision and development objectives to be pursued in order to realize the goals for sustainable development in Kenya. However sector wide reforms are complex in nature due to a large number of commodities involved and stakeholders. This study therefore sought to identify the challenges facing the implementation of SRA.

To achieve this objective a self administered questionnaire was used and distributed to a sample of the employees of the various Ministries involved in the implementation of SRA. A combination of purposive sampling (for senior management) and stratified random sampling (for other officers) was used. Out of a sample of 317 that was targeted 197 (62.1%) responded. The data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

The research analysis revealed that the challenges of implementation of SRA in order of ranking are; awareness and ownership of strategy (mean 2.629); performance management (mean 2.730); resource mobilization (mean3.006); and leadership and organizational culture (mean 3.239). From the research findings it can be concluded that there are significant challenges affecting the implementation of SRA which need to be addressed especially on awareness and ownership of the strategy.

The government is currently implementing various sectoral programmes through several government ministries and departments. As the current study has focused on the Strategy for Revitalizing Agriculture, it has been recommended that detailed research be done on sectoral strategies of other sectors and focus on both formulation and implementation of their respective strategies.