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Agriculture and Food Systems

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Agriculture and Food Systems

Agriculture is a devolved function steered by national policy. Counties deliver husbandry, disease control and extension; the national government sets policy, regulates commodities and runs input subsidies. As coffee and sugar move to dedicated boards and the fertiliser subsidy faces scrutiny, decisions at both levels need evidence that holds.

The policy environment

The Constitution of Kenya, 2010 makes agriculture a shared enterprise. The Fourth Schedule reserves agricultural and veterinary policy to the national government and assigns counties crop and animal husbandry, livestock sale yards, county abattoirs, plant and animal disease control and fisheries. National direction comes from the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy 2019-2029, the Agricultural Policy, 2021 and the Fourth Medium Term Plan 2023-2027, which carries the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda and names tea, dairy, edible oils, rice, leather, textiles and the blue economy among its priority value chains. Coordination runs through the Joint Agricultural Sector Consultation and Cooperation Mechanism, its national steering committee (JASSCOM) and county steering committees under the Intergovernmental Relations Act, 2012. In November 2024 national and county governments agreed to fast-track these structures.

The regulatory architecture is fragmenting by commodity. The Crops Act, 2013 and the Agriculture and Food Authority Act, 2013 placed scheduled crops under a single authority working with counties. Since then the Tea Act, 2020 restored a Tea Board of Kenya, the Sugar Act, 2024 created the Kenya Sugar Board and removed sugarcane from the Crops Act schedule, and the Coffee Act, 2026, in force since 27 March 2026, establishes the Coffee Board of Kenya and takes coffee regulation away from the Authority. Each statute brings its own licensing, levies and county duties. Livestock is governed by the Livestock Policy of 2020; the Livestock Bill, 2024 was pulled back for public sensitisation in August 2024, and a Livestock Bill, 2026 is now before the National Assembly.

Delivery is increasingly digital and contested. Subsidised fertiliser, rolled out in 2023, is accessed through the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS), the national farmer registry that also enables input e-vouchers. In February 2025 the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission began compliance monitoring of the programme, citing fake fertiliser, poor targeting, leakages and procurement fraud, and in January 2026 the government signalled a move to a targeted registry of poor and vulnerable farmers. The World Bank-financed National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project, which builds on the completed Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project, runs to December 2027. Beneath these sit warehouse receipts, irrigation schemes and the drought early warning system run by the National Drought Management Authority.

Where the pressure is

The decisions in front of Kenyan institutions now.

Reviewed October 2026. Each pressure traces to a law, a policy or a ruling set out below.

Fertiliser subsidy integrity and targeting

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission opened compliance monitoring of the subsidy in 2025, citing fake fertiliser, poor targeting, leakages and procurement fraud, and the Auditor-General's report for the year to June 2024 questioned National Cereals and Produce Board procurement and fertiliser the Kenya Bureau of Standards found unsafe. With the government signalling a targeted registry of poor and vulnerable farmers in January 2026, the quality of KIAMIS data has become a policy question, not an IT one.

Coffee and sugar move to dedicated boards

The Coffee Act, 2026 and the Sugar Act, 2024 transfer regulation from the Agriculture and Food Authority to new boards with their own licensing, levies and dispute bodies. Cooperatives, millers, marketers and counties must align licences, grower registers and levy collections with the new regimes, and the 2019 coffee regulations have not been expressly repealed.

Export traceability requirements reach the farm

Coffee farmers are being registered with physical verification and GPS geo-mapping to satisfy the European Union Deforestation Regulation, and livestock vaccination is being pursued partly to meet buyers' sanitary and traceability standards. Producers and counties need registries that prove origin, not just count farmers.

Livestock law and disease control unsettled

The Livestock Bill, 2024 was pulled back in August 2024 for public sensitisation, and a Livestock Bill, 2026 is now before the National Assembly. The national vaccination drive against foot-and-mouth disease and peste des petits ruminants stalled for lack of funds in April 2025 and was renewed with partners in late 2025, leaving counties to reconcile national campaigns with their own disease control mandate.

Unfinished intergovernmental settlement in agriculture

Governors argue that input procurement is a devolved function and want budgeted subsidy funds released to counties as grants. In November 2024 the Ministry agreed with the Council of Governors to fast-track joint coordination structures and to redefine each level's role in input subsidy programmes.

Drought and nutrition risk in the ASALs

The National Drought Management Authority's July 2026 bulletin kept most arid and semi-arid counties in the Normal phase but placed Isiolo in Alert, flagged early deterioration in Turkana, Garissa, Baringo and West Pokot, and described acute malnutrition as a critical concern. Counties must keep contingency plans funded and their evidence current as the short rains approach.

Laws, plans and institutions

The framework that governs the sector.

The Acts and regulations that create obligations, the policies and programmes that set direction, and the institutions that hold the mandate.

Acts and regulations

Crops Act, 2013: Consolidates crop legislation and divides crop functions between the national government, acting through the Agriculture and Food Authority, and counties, which develop crops, control plant disease, run markets and may levy fees for crop development. Its schedule of crops defines who is licensed and levied, and it has been amended as sugar and coffee moved to their own statutes.
Agriculture and Food Authority Act, 2013: Establishes the Agriculture and Food Authority to administer the Crops Act, regulate the handling of agricultural produce, register sector players and advise both levels of government on levies. It requires counties to align their agricultural laws with national policy, and its remit narrows as commodity boards take over sugar and coffee.
Coffee Act, 2026: Assented on 13 March 2026, the Act establishes the Coffee Board of Kenya and the Coffee Research and Training Institute and sets a licensing regime shared with counties and the Capital Markets Authority. It allows sales by auction at a licensed exchange, direct sales benchmarked through an exchange and sales on international exchanges, while counties keep grower registers and issue licences.
Sugar Act, 2024: Creates the Kenya Sugar Board, the Kenya Sugar Research and Training Institute, a Sugar Arbitration Tribunal and a Sugarcane Pricing Committee, and transfers the former Sugar Directorate of the Agriculture and Food Authority to the Board. It empowers the Cabinet Secretary to impose a Sugar Development Levy on domestic and imported sugar to fund factory, cane and research development.
Tea Act, 2020: Re-establishes the Tea Board of Kenya to license manufacturers, brokers, management agents and auction organisers, and sets payment timelines from auction to factory to grower. It also reshapes smallholder factory governance through direct election of directors and caps on management agent and broker fees.
Warehouse Receipt System Act, 2019: Makes a warehouse receipt a negotiable document of title that can serve as collateral, under a Warehouse Receipt System Council that keeps a central registry. County executive members for agriculture license warehouse operators and maintain county registries, placing counties at the centre of post-harvest finance.
Irrigation Act, 2019: Converted the National Irrigation Board into the National Irrigation Authority for national and public schemes and allows counties to establish irrigation development units for smallholder schemes. It provides for irrigation water users' associations and irrigation service fees, which determine how schemes are run and paid for.
National Drought Management Authority Act, 2016: Gives the National Drought Management Authority statutory responsibility for drought early warning, coordination of drought response and facilitation of national and county contingency plans. Its bulletins and drought phase classifications drive county and partner response decisions.

Policies, strategies and programmes

Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy 2019-2029: The ten-year strategy is anchored on raising smallholder, pastoralist and fisherfolk incomes, increasing output and value addition, and strengthening household food resilience. Its flagships include shifting the subsidy programme to high-needs farmers through e-vouchers and restructuring the Strategic Food Reserve, and it expects counties to translate it into county plans.
Agricultural Policy, 2021: Titled Food: Our Health, Wealth and Security, the policy assigns policy-making to the national government and implementation to counties, and asks both to prepare annual implementation plans. It identifies the high cost of agricultural credit, inadequate insurance cover and fragmented market data as constraints to address.
Fourth Medium Term Plan 2023-2027: The plan carries the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda and commits government to raise output per unit across priority value chains, including tea, dairy, edible oils, rice, leather, textiles and apparel, and the blue economy. Ministry statements in 2025 also place coffee, sugar, horticulture, nuts and cotton at the centre of the agenda.
Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2020 on the Livestock Policy: Assigns the national government animal identification, vaccine stocks and transboundary disease contingency planning, and counties extension, surveillance and routine vaccination. It records that commercial and index-based livestock insurance has reached few herders and commits to developing cover across value chains.
National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project: A World Bank-financed project implemented by the State Department for Agriculture, building on the National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project and the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project. Participating counties select up to five value chains, and the project supports producer capacity, climate-smart investments, e-voucher input support and safer urban food systems to December 2027.
Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS): The national farmer registry records land, crops, livestock and fish ponds and is the gateway to subsidised fertiliser and input e-vouchers. Registration drives continued through 2025, including geo-mapped registration of coffee farmers to meet the European Union Deforestation Regulation.

Institutions

Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development: Sets agricultural and veterinary policy through the State Department for Agriculture and the State Department for Livestock Development, and runs the fertiliser subsidy, KIAMIS and donor-financed programmes such as the National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project.
Agriculture and Food Authority: Administers the Crops Act, 2013 and regulates the handling of scheduled crops not yet under their own boards. Its role is narrowing as sector-specific statutes take effect.
Tea Board of Kenya, Kenya Sugar Board and Coffee Board of Kenya: Regulate, license and promote their commodities under the Tea Act, 2020, the Sugar Act, 2024 and the Coffee Act, 2026, and administer levies where their statutes provide.
Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO): Established under the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Act, 2013 to set research priorities, coordinate agricultural research and advise government on research funding needs at national and county level.
National Irrigation Authority: Develops national and public irrigation schemes and supports private and smallholder schemes in cooperation with counties under the Irrigation Act, 2019.
Warehouse Receipt System Council: Oversees the integrity of the warehouse receipt system, sets standards for operators and keeps the central registry, now run as an electronic platform linking receipts to lenders.
National Drought Management Authority: Runs the drought early warning system, publishes national and county drought bulletins and coordinates drought response with counties and partners.
Council of Governors Agriculture Committee: Represents counties in sector negotiations and has pressed for the transfer of agricultural resources and input procurement to counties. Formal consultation runs through JASSCOM and the County Agriculture Sector Steering Committees.

Who does what

Two levels of government, one sector.

How the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 divides the sector between the national government and the 47 county governments.

National government

Agricultural policy and veterinary policy (Fourth Schedule, Part 1).
Regulation of scheduled crops and commodities through the Agriculture and Food Authority and commodity boards.
National agricultural research, standards and transboundary animal disease control.
National and public irrigation schemes through the National Irrigation Authority.
Drought early warning and disaster management through the National Drought Management Authority.
Input subsidy policy, the KIAMIS farmer registry and national value-chain programmes.

County governments

Crop and animal husbandry, livestock sale yards, county abattoirs, plant and animal disease control and fisheries (Fourth Schedule, Part 2).
Veterinary services, excluding regulation of the profession.
Markets and cooperative societies.
Soil and water conservation.
Extension, county irrigation units and licensing duties under the Crops, Coffee and Warehouse Receipt System Acts.
Agriculture chapters of the county integrated development plan and the county budget.

What we offer

6 named services in agriculture and food systems.

Each service has a defined scope, method, timeline and set of deliverables, and can be tailored to your institution.

Our work in this sector

Delivered for Kenyan institutions.

Year	Client	Engagement	Practice
2023	Machakos County Government	County Climate-Resilient Agriculture M&E System	Agriculture M&E

Key references

Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth StrategyMinistry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation, 2019
Transforming Agriculture for Economic Empowerment and Food SecurityMinistry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, 2025
Coffee Act, No. 8 of 2026InforMEA (UN Environment Programme), 2026
Sugar Act, 2024 (Act No. 11 of 2024)Kenya Law, 2024
Warehouse Receipt System ActKenya Law, 2019
Kenya Secures $250 Million to Help 500,000 Smallholder Farmers Enhance Value Addition and Access MarketsWorld Bank, 2022
National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project: Terms of Reference for Mid-Term ReviewMinistry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, 2025
Farmer registration drive on the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information SystemKenya News Agency, 2025
EACC jumpstarts compliance monitoring of National Fertilizer Subsidy Program in the Ministry of AgricultureEthics and Anti-Corruption Commission, 2025
National Drought Early Warning Bulletin, July 2026National Drought Management Authority, 2026

Policy environment reviewed October 2026. Laws, regulations and programmes change; consult the official text before relying on any summary here.

Other sectors

Agriculture and Food Systems

The decisions in front of Kenyan institutions now.

Fertiliser subsidy integrity and targeting

Coffee and sugar move to dedicated boards

Export traceability requirements reach the farm

Livestock law and disease control unsettled

Unfinished intergovernmental settlement in agriculture

Drought and nutrition risk in the ASALs

The framework that governs the sector.

Acts and regulations

Policies, strategies and programmes

Institutions

Two levels of government, one sector.

National government

County governments

6 named services in agriculture and food systems.

Value-Chain Diagnostics

Farmer Registry and Subsidy Verification

Climate-Smart Agriculture M&E

County Agriculture Planning and Budgets

Agricultural Finance and Insurance Feasibility

Food Security Assessments

Delivered for Kenyan institutions.

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