Agriculture and Livestock Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has officially unveiled the Kenya AgriConnect Compact (2025–2030), a bold national agricultural transformation initiative engineered to shift the sector from subsistence farming into a modern, high-tech, and commercially viable economic powerhouse.
Speaking during the launch, the CS stated that 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.
The CS noted that at the core of this ambitious strategy is a heavy emphasis on digitalization and technology, which will see the deployment of digital extension services, agritech platforms for market traceability, and advanced processing technologies designed to eliminate crippling post-harvest losses.
Kagwe said the government is committing USD 3.8 billion in catalytic public funds, strategically structured to de-risk the sector and crowd in a massive USD 7.6 billion in private sector investment.
‘The Agriconnect Compact is a deliberate, strategic, and urgent framework to align public investment with private sector ambition where public investment finances foundational systems and public goods, reducing risks and creating an enabling environment that attracts large-scale private capital,” CS Kagwe noted.
He added that by leveraging public-private partnerships, blended finance, and credit guarantees, the framework fundamentally changes the risk profile of agricultural lending, turning local value chains, such as dairy, edible oils, and horticulture, into highly attractive, lucrative targets for private capital.
‘Beyond production, this comprehensive framework prioritizes market systems transformation by upgrading infrastructure, rolling out digital marketplaces, and developing structured trading systems to ensure farmers are no longer exploited by fragmented value chains,”he added.
“These market reforms are aggressively targeted at slashing costly imports of food staples like rice and maize by 50 percent, while driving a 60 percent surge in high-value exports to global markets. Most importantly, this market-driven growth is directly tied to solving the nation’s employment crisis,” he emphasized.
Highlighting the human impact of this shift, CS Kagwe emphasized, “The jobs to be created will be real jobs with dignity. The food security we achieve will mean that no Kenyan goes to bed hungry.”
The technical groundwork is set to be complete.
“We have the strategy. We have the investment framework. We have the political will. What we need now is private sector action.” Kenya is officially moving from strategy to collective action to secure total food sustainability and widespread economic prosperity” the CS concluded.
Present were PS Livestock Development Jonathan Mueke, PS Agriculture Dr.Kipronoh Ronoh, Governor Mutahi Kahiga (Nyeri), Governor Nathif Jama Adam (Garissa), Governor Joseph Ole Lenku (Kajiado), Deputy Governor Dr. Mathew Ochieng among other key partners: Key development partners: World Bank Group, IFAD, African Development Bank (AfDB), Gates Foundation, AGRA, US Embassy, Embassy of the Netherlands, Embassy of the Netherlands, German Embassy, GiZ, American Chamber of Commerce, British Chamber of Commerce & Industry, KEPSA, KAM and ASNET
