Overview

Agriculture produced almost a quarter of GDP in 2025, and half of all households farmed at the 2019 census. Agriculture, forestry and fishing generated KSh 4,071.0 billion of value added in 2025, 23.2% of GDP, after real growth of 3.1%¹. On World Bank data this was worth US$31.5 billion². The 2019 census counted 6,354,211 farming households, 52.3% of all households (own calculation), and 88.7% of them farmed mainly for subsistence³. The ILO's modelled estimate puts agriculture at 45.8% of employment in 2025⁸. Kenya has not held a comprehensive census of agriculture since independence, and the first, for 2025/26, had not published results by October 2026⁹.

Production combines food staples for the home market with export crops. Maize production was estimated at 45.8 million 90-kg bags in 2025, and made tea at 550.4 thousand tonnes⁴. Fresh horticultural exports earned KSh 143.8 billion in 2025, of which cut flowers KSh 81.3 billion⁴. Kenya was the third-largest tea leaf producer and the largest camel milk producer in the world in 2024 on FAOSTAT data (own ranking)¹⁰. Small farms, defined by KNBS as farms under 20 hectares, accounted for 71.6% of recorded marketed sales in 2025⁴.

Kenya was a net exporter of agri-food products in 2025. On UN Comtrade data Kenya exported US$4.78 billion of agri-food products in 2025 and imported US$3.59 billion⁷. Coffee, tea and spices made up US$1.88 billion of exports and live plants and cut flowers US$0.88 billion, while cereals (US$1.20 billion) and vegetable oils (US$1.12 billion) led imports⁷.

Bank credit to agriculture is small relative to the sector's output. Commercial banks held KSh 197.9 billion of loans to agriculture at the end of 2025, about US$1.53 billion and 4.6% of gross loans, and 19.3% of these loans were non-performing (own calculation)⁶⁵. The 2024 FinAccess survey found that the primary source of day-to-day agricultural financing was reinvested income from farming, at 49.3%¹¹. The Central Bank Rate has been 8.75% since February 2026 and remained there at the meeting of 7 October 2026¹²¹³.

Drought was the challenge cited most often in 2024. In the 2024 FinAccess survey drought ranked as the leading challenge in agriculture, at 19.2%¹¹. The five rainy seasons from October 2020 to December 2022 were all below the 1991–2020 average on ERA5 data, by up to 54% (own calculation)¹⁴. The government's second NDC puts the economic losses of the 2022 drought at more than KES 70 billion¹⁵.