FLC: Promoters of the rights of indigenous peoples

General

Kenya National Farmers Federation (KenAFF) is the umbrella farmers? organization in Kenya registered . The Federation envisions ?a vibrant agricultural sector sustaining improved livelihoods?. Its mission is ?to progressively influence change in the Agricu ltural Sector environments and promote Agribusiness through targeted interventions.The Kenyan agriculture is mostly characterized by smallholder farmers who are scattered across the country and not organized in their nature of operation. The smallholder fa rmers produce for subsistence and sometimes sell surplus. Due to lack of investment in factors to improve and undertake sustainable productivity smallholder farmers suffer perennial hunger malnutrition and therefore diseases. They are relatively a marginal ized group whose right to quality and nutritious food all the time good health and clothing remains compromised. The production and marketing functions of agricultural commodities are also affected by land degradation due to over usage of the land parcels high cost and overly inaccessible inputs inferior planting materials low prices at farm gate level and lack of market information to the producers. Agriculture is also affected by persistent drought which affects most regions in the country. Due to drought patterns farmers lose a lot as the kind of crop varieties and the technologies currently in use are not able to sustain growth of crops in drought periods. These problems make smallholder farmers to be perennially food insecure and live in poverty. On the other hand Kenyan governance has been devolved to the county levels in view of the Kenyan constitution 2010. That brings closer to the rural community the opportunities for having their concerns addressed. However real time articulation of rights violatio n levels proper packaging and communication of the concerns considerably lacks among the farming community. KenAFF has therefore been operating with rural communities on various developmental interventions with its key focus being rural community empowerme nt to address their challenges. That on one hand and having successfully implemented the first phase of HRBA creates due opportunity for the federation to effectively intervene in the remaining 26 counties. Women and the youth participation in agricultu re is limited as the ownership of most of factors of production is in hands of men. Women and the youth are not involved in key economic decision making processes.