Kenya is a country whose major economic pillar is agriculture and it is practiced on both large and small scale. Small scale famers experience more challenges since they depend on the prevailing weather patterns in this case mostly rainfall which is normally unevenly distributed. The challenges facing the farmers include;
Meteorological reports; most meteorological reports produced by the Kenyan meteorological department through the Kenyan media have been unreliable since it is not as accurate as expected hence giving farmers losses because of the unstable weather patterns experienced afterwards.
Poor or obsolete technology; Kenya as a country has been making slow but sure steps towards the incorporation of technology but its application in agricultural sector has been so far limited because of lack of funds since most farmers are small scale farmers who struggle to make ends meet.
Climate change; the global climate change impacts are also being felt in Kenya mainly being the unpredictable weather patterns which is common. The months that were considered rainy months have of late changed and shifted to the months that huge amounts of rain were not expected. Famers can now not have accurate timing of planting crops.
Lack of extension services by the government. The Kenyan government through its agricultural extension officers have not been doing active work in helping farmers and giving them the necessary education needed to improve their crop yields. There is also limited access to extension services since the number of officers is small serving a very wide area where some Afarmers are located in the remote areas hence farmers cannot keep pace with the changing technological advances.
Pests and diseases;pests and diseases have been contributing to increased losses by farmers and this is a result of lack of information from the extension officers who are supposed to advise farmers on the best farming practices and the best control measures for the diseases and pests to avert major losses.
Application of inputs;kenyan farmers lack the appropriate information on the types of inputs such as fertilizer application and they are costly to the small scale farmers hence the farmers have been ignoring to use the inputs and hence leading to poor yields.
Poor infrastructure;lack of good feeder roads from the remote areas and bad roads and general transport network have been a big problem in Kenya.perishable horticultural crops like flowers get spoilt due to bad infrastructure.this means that the farmers will incur more costs to transport their produce to the factories hence low pofit margins.
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