THE ROLE OF AGRICULTURE IN ENHANCING FOOD SECURITY AND ADDRESSING POVERTY IN KENYA
One of the principal goals of every developing country is to reach high-income status. Agriculture plays a critical role in transforming economies to reach the goal, along with achieving other essential development goals like ensuring food security and improving nutrition. Poverty and hunger remain the greatest development challenge of our time. On the other hand, Food security and low nutrition remain problems throughout the less developed parts of the world (HLPE, 2017)
Food security is about access to safe, nutritious, and enough food all year round. According to the World Bank, poverty encompasses low income and consumption, low educational achievement, poor health and nutritional outcomes, lack of access to basic services, and a hazardous living environment. It uses a poverty line of US$1.90 per day as an indicator of extreme poverty (World Bank, 2018).
Agriculture plays the following roles in enhancing food security and addressing poverty in Kenya;
- Agriculture ensures a constant food supply and food security for the population; this ensures that the work force-fed with energy to supply labor to industries and other economic sectors.
- Improving the welfare of rural people. An increase in rural incomes as a result of agricultural surplus tends to improve rural welfare. Peasants start consuming more food especially of higher nutritional value in the form of superior quality cereals, eggs, ghee, milk, fruits, etc. they build better houses fitted with modern amenities like electricity. Provide themselves with better means of health and education facilities etc. Thus, the increased agricultural surplus has the effect of raising the standards of the mass of rural people.
- Increased productivity of agriculture raises farm incomes, increases food supply, reduces food prices, and provides greater employment opportunities in both rural and urban areas. Higher incomes can increase the consumer demand for goods and services leading to higher growth and better wages.
The Effect of Heavy Machinery Use on the Environment
Heavy machinery entails an operational advantage, however, its effects are adversely immense and categorically it increases on Environmental Pollution. The level of pollution is dependent on different phases of mechanism which include; operation, dismantling, and manufacturing. Different phases of the mechanism give a reflection on the size of the machine, and its mitigation technique. More complex machinery subjects the environment to high pollution due to high energy consumption. Heavy machinery is unavoidable in areas such as road construction, agricultural, industrial, and infrastructure projects. However, they have a significant environmental impact, primarily because heavy machines such as wheel loaders typically use diesel engines that generate high emissions.
Heavy machines use diesel engines which are major sources of air pollutants that have serious adverse effects on the environment and human health. The machinery usage has a great influence on the environment since they emit poisonous exhaust substances such as gaseous vapor, oil products on the environment. Pollution, either air or water pollution is a severe environmental burden, it is harmful to human and animal health, and reduces crop yields and crop quality. Several studies have shown that mining and construction equipment is a particularly significant source of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, and thus has important effects on both climate change and air quality (Heidari and Marr 2015). Heavy agricultural machinery results in more permanent damage to the soil resulting in soil compacted which further affects agricultural yields.
How Research on Agriculture Is Essential In Addressing Poverty
Research has altered our world in big ways. The standard of living enjoyed today is much higher than it was for previous generations. A transformed agricultural research system helps to achieve sustainable food and income security for all agricultural producers and consumers, particularly for resource-poor households, whether they are in rural or urban areas. It is no longer news that Agriculture can help reduce poverty, raise incomes, and improve food security for 80% of the world’s poor, who live in rural areas and work mainly in farming. The effect of agricultural research on poverty comes through its effects on agricultural productivity. Research produces new technologies and management practices that increase productivity. Research has produced several types of outputs, including material inputs such as plant protection chemicals, machines, agronomic practices for improved crop management.
A large body of evidence shows that research has been instrumental in introducing improved technologies that have raised agricultural production, stimulated economic growth, and helped poor people through lower food prices and higher incomes. Moreover, agricultural technologies developed through comprehensive and intensive agricultural research have helped food production grow faster than population, thus avoiding widespread food shortages that would cause particular hardship on poor people. Technological change in turn increases food production and or reduces production costs. This can affect poor people’s incomes in four basic ways; technology adoption and farmers’ incomes, agricultural wages and employment incomes; Food prices and accessibility; linkages among agricultural technology, economic growth, and poverty alleviation. Therefore, to end hunger and undernutrition while accelerating economic growth, agricultural transformation through vigorous agricultural research must become a reality.
References
Adato, M., & Meinzen-Dick, R. S. (2002). Assessing the impact of agricultural research on poverty using the sustainable livelihoods framework (No. 581-2016-39396).
Heidari, B., and L. C. Marr. 2015. Real-time emissions from construction equipment compared with model predictions. J. Air Waste Manage. Assoc. 2:115–25. doi:10.1080/10962247.2014.978485
HLPE (2017) Nutrition and Food Systems. A report by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security. Rome.
World Bank (2018) Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle. Washington, DC: World Bank.