Crop Production Essay

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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

ABSTRACT
Crop and animal production and marketing are the means of livelihood for millions of households in Kenya. It is the single largest sub-sector within Kenyan economy, far exceeding all others in terms of its share in rural employment, land use and contribution to the national income. However, crop production and animal rearing in Kenya is constrained by technical and socio economic factors. Among the technical factors, diseases and pests are the major contributing factors to the low yield. This problem needs sufficient and knowledgeable experts to identify the diseases and describe the methods of treatment and protection at early stage of infestation. The aim of this research is to develop knowledge based system …show more content…

The country’s economic development will depend, in large part on sustainable improvements in agriculture. Agriculture remains by far the most important sector in the Kenyan economy for the following reasons: (i) It directly supports about 85% of the population in terms of employment and livelihood; (ii) It contributes about 50% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP); (iii) It generates about 80% of the export earnings. Agriculture is also the major source of food for the population and hence the prime contributing sector to food security (ICARDA, 2010). In addition, agriculture is expected to play a key role in generating surplus capital to speed up the overall socio economic development of the country. A high rate of agricultural growth has far reaching positive implications for economic development of low income countries in terms of increasing employment and accelerating poverty reduction (Mellor and Dorosh, 2010). Even though 85 percent of the country’s Population lives in the rural areas, the performance of the agricultural sector in Kenya has remained weak and it is heavily influenced by weather condition (Mulat, 2009). Furthermore, the productivity of the sub-sector is decreasing as a result of poor management systems, shortage of skilled experts who provide advice for farmers at county level. Despite the importance of agriculture in its economy, Kenya has been a food deficit country since the early 1970s. A closer look at the performance of the Kenyan agriculture reveals that over the last three decades it has been unable to produce sufficient quantities to feed the country’s rapidly growing human population (Kassa and Degnet,

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