(Ecofin Agency) - The Kenyan government has just concluded with Ireland a five-year agreement to boost its agricultural production, Businessdailyafrica reports.

This agreement will fall under the 2017-2021 Ireland-Kenya Agri-Food Strategy and will focus mainly on the fishery and dairy sectors.

It should enable local farmers to benefit from technology transfer in regards to modern agriculture, as well as from Ireland’s expertise in the dairy sector, thus creating investment opportunities for Irish firms.

“Our objectives are to increase Ireland-Kenya trade value in agri-food by 100 per cent, strengthen defined policies, institutions and businesses in support of the food sector in Kenya. We are also targeting to increasing farmers income in at a least two counties through support for value chains in Irish potato,” Ireland’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, Simon Coveney, said.   

“We acknowledge the support we have received from Ireland to improve agriculture and this deal will open up more opportunities for our farmers to export more produce,” said for his part Ntiba Micheni, Kenya’s Agriculture principal secretary. 

Let’s recall that Kenya’s exports are currently mainly dominated by tea and coffee, and also horticultural products.

With a herd of 4.2 million cattle, the nation produces an average of 5.2 billion liters of crude milk every year, and its fish output was valued at $173 million in 2016.

Espoir Olodo