Kenya needs to tap on the youth's mechanisation potential and data driven agriculture to boots food production.
This is according to experts who attended the Kenya Society of Environmental, Biological and Agricultural Engineers (KeSEBAE) forum in Nairobi.
They said that in the wake of climate change realities, the country needs to adopt data driven agriculture to meet the growing food demand
Mechanisation percentage in Kenya is only at 30 per cent, according to Crop Development Principal Secretary Kello Harsama.
This was partly attributed to the low number of agricultural engineers in Kenya with KeSEBAE stakeholders now calling for increased participation in the agritech and engineering space.
“Agricultural engineers make valuable contribution in addressing food security and sustainable farming practices. Though the numbers are not so good locally. We have 15 consulting engineers and 980 graduate engineers this is an upside down pyramid,” said Engineers Board of Kenya chairman Erastus Mwongera.
Despite the integral role agriculture sector plays in Kenya’s food system and economy, the sector only realises 25 per cent of the total potential yields, according to a recent study by Food and Land Use (FOLU) coalition.
To remedy this, Mwongera said the board has since established the legal and governance instruments for establishment of Kenya School of Engineering to interlink the various engineering disciplines with agriculture and technology.
Pan African Society for Agricultural Engineering (PASAE) President, Michael Faborode said to increase participation of engineers in agriculture, there is need to develop a framework starting from education curriculum.
“There is a plan by Association of African Universities so that even if you get two years in Nairobi you can transfer credit to another country if you’re relocating. We want African countries to commit to this goal if we want to be active, industrialise and be food sustainable,” said Faborode.
KeSEBAE chairman Larry Gumbe said that the few experts like the bio medical engineering professionals that the country has have been engaged in research and innovation leaving the country short of field engineers.