The Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Development Mutahi Kagwe has launched a sweeping Ksh1.47 trillion (USD11.4 billion) plan to overhaul Kenya's agricultural sector and create millions of jobs by 2030.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

CS Kagwe on Thursday, June 17, unveiled the Kenya AgriConnect Compact in Nairobi, a five-year strategy aimed at transforming agriculture from a subsistence activity into a modern, technology-driven commercial sector.

"The Agriconnect Compact positions agriculture not as a subsistence sector, but as a modern, technology-enabled, climate-smart, and investment-ready engine for inclusive economic transformation,” stated CS Kagwe.

Central to this plan is the 2.482 million new and upgraded jobs the initiative targets, which aim to absorb Kenya's youth into agro-processing, logistics, digital supply chains, and agribusiness management roles.

📌 What You Need to Know

To further streamline the project, the government is set to inject KSh 491.72 billion (USD 3.8 billion) in public funds, structured to reduce sector risk and unlock Ksh984 billion (USD 7.6 billion) in private-sector investment.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), blended finance, and credit guarantees are also key elements in the initiative, designed to make agricultural lending more attractive to banks and private investors who have long avoided the sector.

Beyond financing, the project also targets a 50 per cent cut in the costly imports of staples such as rice and maize, while pushing for a 60 per cent rise in high-value exports to global markets.

This comes at a time when the Commercial Bank of Kenya (CBK), in its  Agriculture Sector Survey for May 2026 , cites that Kenyans expect prices of key food items in the core Consumer Price Index basket to increase over the next month, largely due to concerns over the impact of the ongoing US-Israel-Iran conflict on global supply chains.

Additionally, digital tools will play a major role, with the rollout of digital extension services, agritech platforms for market traceability, and advanced processing technologies to eliminate post-harvest losses that cost farmers billions annually.

Market systems will also be overhauled, with upgraded infrastructure, digital marketplaces, and structured trading systems ensuring that farmers are no longer left at the mercy of exploitative, fragmented value chains driven by industry cartels.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke