Why I believe reviving parastatals and agriculture sector is the future of our country

Kenya has great potential but at the moment it is a shithole been lead by myopic and greedy leaders. Reviving the parastatals mostly those focused on the agriculture sector will provide an opportunity for the jobless youth to get employment both directly and indirectly. We have hard-working farmers who are taken advantage of by both the government and the brokers due to lack of collective bargaining. Imagine if the coffee, maize, milk, or even the fruit industry had two working parastatals supporting the farmers? This would encourage proper farming techniques and ready market for the produce. Imagine the juakali industry, the carpenters were collectively using their skills in various locally build factories to produce goods. For example, the county of Nairobi together with the government built a factory/ warehouse (parastatal) for this carpenters. we would be attracting a company like Ikea in our country. At the moment the system is set for small scale production or entrepreneur and it’s hurting the industrialization stage of the country. We have millionaires in the country who don’t own any company or employ more than 5 people.

This is the Same song sang all the time.

The only song being sang is referendum and 2022 election coz we don’t focus on real issues but who will eat next .

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Parastatals are the reason why the agriculture sector is paralysed. Lets have cooperatives instead supported by both the national and county governments in terms of policy and oversight and loans from AFC, instead of maize farmers depending on the NCPB to buy their maize they could have their own coop building silos to store the grain and have a milling arm to add value. KTDA is the perfect example, it thrives because it is a private entity unlike NCPB, KPCU, the Pyrethrum one and KMC.

Name a country that has experienced prosperity by reviving parastatals and focusing on agriculture.

We are suffering from state capture and oligarchies. Politicians are also the key business people in this country. The problem with this is that government can not regulate any industry to ensure a free market economy. What that means is that the people in government who should be the regulators are competing with other market players to get the highest return by exploiting their positions in government to skew the playing field to their favour.

Lemme give you examples with basic consumer commodities.

DAIRY

We all know who the key player in the dairy industry is. It is the family of the president. The company or groups of companies has bought out nearly all competitors in the market. That means that that company has bargaining power. Since it is one entity buying dairy from Kenyan farmers that means they can dictate price. So if they decide to buy milk from dairy farmers at 30 bob or even 20, farmers have little say because majority if not all the demand for their milk comes from them so they can sell the milk at the price of the monopoly or have a glut and get completely no return. Ofcourse there are saccos that sell milk to Milk ATMs but its a nominal percentage because most people can not tolerate non pasterised raw milk products and also since there is no regulation for that product category of raw milk , it gets a bad rap and many are not too keen on it though it is cheaper. Now a liter of milk is bought at 30 bob and then half a liter is sold at 40 something almost 50, this is almost 300% profit margin. In a regulated market , the regulator would enforce a floor cap,meaning a minimum price for milk processors to buy milk from farmers . I mean best practices dictate that there should be a pricing regime enforced by the regulator.

MAIZE

This is too fucked up. I cant even explain it. Fertilizer and pesticides prices are too high . And majority of Kenyan maize farmers are small scale farmers meaning economies of scale cant apply to them. We know what happens at NCPB where Treasury gives money to them to buy maize from Kenyan farmers and then some cartels linked to the highest offices clears out that money ,payments are made before the cartels themselves can deliver the maize to NCPB. So the farmer delivers and can not get paid for ions.Then it later emerges that the even the maize delivered by the cartels is not even fit for human consumption then Strategic Grain Reserves(SGR) fall and government goes into emergency imports which are chock full of cartels of politicians and their families and friends and sometimes even staff and miller cartels. Even so called government subsidies like subsidized fertilizer comes late and we know timely operations are key to optimum production in crop farming. Other subsidies like subsidizing unga does not benefit the mwanainchi because millers hoard the maize meal to force the consumers to buy unga at higher price than government recommended retail prices.

At one parliamentary select committee for agriculture seating with the Agriculture CS I watched , it emerged that in every single agricultural industry you can think of in Kenya there are cartels including Ndengu in Ukambani - Green Gram and Macadamia nuts in Meru. Free market does not exist in Kenya because politicians are monopolizing nearly every industry . Government instead of being a regulator of industries , are barring competition and enabling state capture.

Investors are afraid of Kenya because of the corruption and bribes recquired for market entry and the astronomical cost of doing business in Kenya .From power to licenses to taxes. Are just too much and thats why business people bribe KRA people,KPLC people,Kanjo people and engage in unethical business practices to be profitable like the meat being soaked in 67,000 units of sodium metabisulphate per a kg of meat from a reputable retail giant like Tusky Kenyatta avenue.

Things like that are being done not only in Kenya but worldwide overall and I just do not see how it really should matters out there. All industries like farming, constructions and everything else. All are in death condition thanks to the IT and banks.

Netherlands

New Zealand.

It’s called hybrid governance and China and Qatar are great example or look at the BBC in Britain, Aljazeera in Qatar

Tupunguze mzigo kwanza.

Despite all its failings, the government has actually done a stretch as far as laying
down infrastructure for production. The roads are quite good, power production, transmission
and distribution inaendelea sambamba, and the population is young, creative and smart AF

The only thing remaining is to is to fiercely protect our borders and markets from foreign jackals of all stripes. Keep our gold within the 254 by trading amongst ourselves. Everyone else does it. Enough with the self hate and wringing of arms and old skul AfroPessimists

Then watch the African lion stirr and ignite an African rennaisance this time powered by money, brains and IT. Can’t you see Wakanda is within grasp good people

Pffff…A simple google search could have avoided this.
Netherlands is a net exporter and has always been heavily industrialised.
Agriculture currently accounts for just about 1.6% of the GDP - and even then is more technological and less rainfall dependant as is the case in Kenya.
The point being industrial growth - not parastatals or agriculture result in economic growth.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Netherlands
https://www.britannica.com/place/Netherlands/Economy
https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-dutch-economy-in-the-golden-age-16th-17th-centuries/

Try read in between the lines. What’s the industrialization on? A country can never industrialize without supporting an existing industry. But hey, you are right!

And you believe a country whose industries have scarcely grown since post-colonial times is going to experience rapid industrialisation through the inept parastatals and non-technological agriculture? Really?

Integrity is the only issue, regardless of institutions. Then we need short term and long term plans on where we need to be as a country.