Conditions for achieving sustained agricultural intensification in Africa: evidence from Kenya

Abstract

This chapter examines the conditions for achieving sustained agricultural intensification using evidence from micro- and macro-data from Kenya, as well as the six 'I's that represent significant proximate variables influencing agricultural performance, namely Incentives, Inputs, Infrastructure, Institutions, Initiatives and Innovations. The chapter further demonstrates how a change in these 'I's affects agricultural productivity. Furthermore, the authors discuss agricultural intensification and a number of public interventions to promote it, and spell out their implications for the realization of Millennium Development Goal of halving, by 2015, the share of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger. Emphasis is laid on maize production, since the lack of maize signals famine and poverty in Kenya, even when other food crops may be available. The chapter examines the conditions that led to a revitalization of increased agricultural productivity in the period 2003 to 2007, after an enabling policy environment that favoured the six 'I's was put in place. The authors also present scenarios likely to emerge after the skirmishes that rocked the country soon after the December 2007 general elections.