International Journal of Food Science and Agriculture, 2019, 3(3), 253-256

http://www.hillpublisher.com/journals/jsfa

Strangling by Design; The Tragedy of Small Scale Farmers

in Kenya
Joram Ngugi Kamau
Department of Agricultural Economics Egerton University-Kenya

How to cite this paper: Kamau, J.N. (2019) Abstract

Strangling by Design; The Tragedy of Small
Scale Farmers in Kenya. International The agrarian economy in Kenya is characterized by diminutive benefits
Journal of Food Science and Agriculture, by most small scale farmers from the agricultural supply chain due to the
3(3), 253-256.
venomous gluttony of the most central actors in the value chain. Small scale
DOI: 10.26855/ijfsa.2019.09.015 farmers are positioned as net losers in the whole agricultural value chain but
*Corresponding author: Joram Ngugi Kamau,
can’t quit for survival reasons. While this is the reality in the country, small
Department of Agricultural Economics Egerton scale farmers find themselves in a quagmire of choosing their marauder;
University-Kenya. brokers or the government. The former is ruthless while the latter is a
Email: [email protected] smokescreen. The study used descriptive statistics using SPSS software to
depict the insatiable appetite by the middlemen and government captors who
frustrates the agrarian economy in the country. There are no standardized
metric measures that guide the buying of agricultural commodities at the farm
gate by the middle men. Prices are malevolently dictated by the brokers where
the farmers have to swallow the bitter pills due to their economic detriments.
The government on the other hand makes payments at their own pace without
considering the economic survival of the farmers. Time value for money is
not a factor in government’s institutions and breach of contracts has been a
norm. For a country that aspires to be food secure, the import mentality of
agricultural produces by ‘tenderpreneurs’ must be dismantled from the onset.
Frustrating local production to pave way for the lucrative import business is a
mistake that no nation can afford to commit especially if it’s the only sector it
has a comparative advantage in.

Keywords
Small scale farmers; Value chain; Net losers

1. Introduction
Kenya has a comparative advantage in agricultural production due to favorable climatic and ecological conditions but
keeps mutilating this phenomenon by frustrating small scale farmers. The reason behind this is so that the high profile
economic and political buccaneers can benefit from the import industry at the expense of local producers. They choked
the pyrethrum, sisal, cotton, sugarcane and a myriad of other products so that they can make money from the import
industry and dominate the entire supply chains (Wekesa et al., 2015). Lipton, (2005) defined small scale farmers
as those with a low asset base, operating less than 2 hectares of cropland and where farmers tend to practice a mix
commercial and subsistence mode of production.
Production in Kenya is marred by inconceivable cost of production where the tax man finds a lazy hotspot to get revenue
since the farmers must produce solely for their consumption. Farm inputs are highly taxed from the raw materials to the
final inputs (Odero, 2017). The trickle effect of this is that the input prices have an exponentially exaggerated cost. But
why don’t they quit? They have to produce for their domestic consumption; otherwise the cartels would be smiling to
the banks in the name of food aids and rationed imports.
Manufacturers of agrochemicals and farm inputs in the country are another nightmare to the small-scale farmers (Gyau

DOI: 10.26855/ijfsa.2019.09.015 253 International Journal of Food Science and Agriculture

Joram Ngugi Kamau

et al., 2016). How they arrive at their pricing decisions is always questionable. They only have two explanations at their
disposal; high taxation of raw materials and the cost of electricity in the country (Bolo, 2016). Their inefficiencies and
vilest production techniques is recovered from the languishing farmers. They don’t want to invest in modern production
techniques which are cost effective since the burden of their archaic production techniques will be swiftly transferred to
the vulnerable farmers.
While the government crows for a food secure country, little investment is done in the agricultural extension services.
Farmers are left with trial and error production methods and have no idea on when to produce, how to produce and
what to produce in their ecological zones. The weather man in the country factually assists in forecasting day and night
for the farmers and therefore farmers are left to gamble with their production. Crop failures due to pest, diseases and
weather related issues have been the norm in a country where 70% of its populace depends on agriculture either directly
or indirectly (Mathenge et al., 2015).
Post-harvesting losses in the country account for 30% of total agricultural outputs. This is occasioned by lack of
knowhow in handling agricultural products (Suleiman and Kurt, 2015). Designed coordination gap in the supply chain
ensures that the surplus production is at the disposal of the central actors in the value chain. With poor or no storage
facilities for the farm surpluses, middlemen and the government decoys pop out to strangle the ailing farmers.
Marketing of agricultural produces is a stage in the value chain that torments the small scale farmers to agony,
pain and despair. From the land preparation to harvesting, farmers are at their own struggles but immediately find
unremorseful brothers at the marketing stage who seal their perpetual grousing. There are limited standardized measures
of agricultural products such as metric measures at the farm gate where agricultural commodities are subjective to the
misnomer of the agrarian scavengers.

2. Methodology
The study was conducted in Nakuru County in Kenya. This area was purposively selected due to the abundance of
maize production from the area. Maize and maize products are literally consumed by every household in the country
on a daily basis. The study randomly sampled 100 small scale farmers from which inferences were drawn for the whole
population.

3. Results and Discussions

The table below describes the distribution of marketing channels and the prices offered by each channel. The study
identified three marketing channels namely; self-marketing, middlemen and the government. Middlemen offered a
variation in prices ranging from Ksh.1100 to Ksh.2000 while self-marketing and the government offered a fixed price of
Ksh.2000 and Ksh.2600 respectively on a 90 Kg bag of maize.
Table1. Various Marketing Channels

MARKETING_CHANNEL * PRICE_90KG_BAG CROSSTABULATION

PRICE_90KG_BAG (KSH)
MARKETING_CHANNEL Total
1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 2000 2600

SELF MARKETING 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 39 0 39

MIDDLEMEN 1 3 3 8 7 4 1 0 0 27

GOVERNMENT 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 34 34
Total 1 3 3 8 7 4 1 39 34 100

The 3D graph below presents the three marketing channels identified by the study and their respective duration of
payment to the farmers. While middlemen are offering an instant payment, their prices are so varied begging the
question of integrity in their business. On the other hand, conducting business with the government seems lucrative at
the face value but in reality, it’s a source of agony and regret among farmers and fellow citizens in the country.

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 Joram Ngugi Kamau

While agriculture ought to be a pull factor to the unemployed in the country, no rational individual will venture into
this business when all they see are deprived farmers surrounded by a cohort of flamboyant government captors and
middlemen who thrive solely by sucking the bona fide efforts of these miserably living farmers. The consequence of this
is that food security in the country will remain a mirage as long as the beneficiaries of the agrarian economy is skewed
towards few individuals in the agricultural supply chain as indicated by the results.

Figure 1. Marketing Channels and Payment Durations

While self-marketing and middlemen provides money to the farmers within 24hrs of transaction, government payment
to the farmers takes up to 300 days (ten months) to be effected as indicated in the table below.

Table 2. Marketing_Channel * Duration_In_Days Crosstabulation

DURATION_IN_DAYS
MARKETING_CHANNEL Total
1 300

SELF MARKETING 39 0 39

MIDDLEMEN 27 0 27

GOVERNMENT 0 34 34

Total 67 34 100

With the bleating financial constrain by small scale farmers, whose majorities’ sole source of income is farming,
manipulation by the middle men is inevitable. They take advantage of their financial urgency to exploit them and leave
them to the mercies of the government. Due to the treacherous nature of feeder roads in the country’s rural areas, very
few have the ability to afford means of transport to the local markets.
Small scale farmers who are unable to withstand the torture of the middle men and are unable to market on their own
find refuge in the government where time value for money is not a factor. These impoverished farmers stay for months
without receipt of any coin despite their delivery due to the price bait. Officials in the government institutions keeps
these farmers on the waiting bay in the pretext of payment processing which take months to see the light of the day.

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

Small scale farmers in the country are victims of their hard work. As demonstrated by the study, market access by the
farmers has been a scavenging avenue for exploitation and abuse. One key issue noted during the study is that middle
men and brokers are notorious in the sense that they have a complete disregard of standardized metric measures when

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Joram Ngugi Kamau

purchasing agricultural products at the farm gate. Due to the economic and infrastructural disadvantage exhibited by
small scale farmers in the country, middle men dictate the prices at the farm gate creating a double tragedy in terms of
pricing and quantification.
With government institutions whose moral and ethical integrity is beyond restoration, the captors prolong the payment
duration for farmers as indicated by the study. If there is no return on investment, any rational producer quit or reduces
the quantity produced. Wh en the market for agricultural products becomes the cash cow for economic buccaneers in the
country at the expense of the languishing farmers, the ultimate outcome is a vicious cycle of food insecurity in the country.
Due to inefficiencies in government institutions, the government should fully quit from transacting business with the
farmers. Doing business with the Kenyan government in all sectors has been marred by cartels that not only ensure that
the initial engagement is corrupt, but also diverts the payments for months and even years to their personal investments.
Payments are later made in piecemeal that really discourage any engagement with any government institution. In light
of this, the author unequivocally recommends for legislation that upon successful transaction with the government, and
failure to pay within 30 days, any document substantiating the existence of a contract should automatically become
a legal tender to the extent of the amount owed. In this case, the document can be presented to any bank for money
without notification upon the lapse of the 30 days window. It has become a norm on the part of the government to
breach contracts with individuals without any rational consideration of the economic inconveniences they cause.
To curb the malice by middle men, farmers should embrace cooperative movements where they can inculcate elements
such as value addition and cold storage in the value chain. By marketing in bulk, farmers will enjoy benefits of
economies of scale and therefore evade the manipulation by these perennial brigands whose only motive is to propagate
the selfish culture of unbounded capitalism that has drained off the country’s coffers.
While this policy document finds its way into the archives to gather dust, it’s imperative that the government invests
heavily on addressing the endemic dragon of corruption, appetite for the lucrative government tenders, impunity and
abuse of office in government institutions. Rewards to factors of production must be realized with an underscore on the
marginal productivity of each factor of production as opposed to the scramble for government tenders in the brewing
democratic republic of impunity.

References
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[3] Lipton, M. (2005) Crop science, poverty, and the family farm in a globalizing world. 2020 Discussion paper 40.
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