Empowering Women Could Unlock Kenya’s Agricultural Potential and Accelerate Economic Growth

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Key Highlights

• Women are the backbone of Kenya’s agricultural economy, yet structural barriers such as limited land ownership, restricted access to credit, and gender stereotypes continue to limit their productivity and leadership within the sector.
• Empowering women farmers through policy reform, education, and financial inclusion could significantly boost Kenya’s agricultural output, food security, and long-term economic growth.

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Kenya’s agricultural sector remains the backbone of the national economy, employing the majority of the rural population and sustaining food systems across the country. According to government and economic data, agriculture contributes roughly one-third of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product directly and accounts for more than 60 percent of export earnings when agro-processing and related value chains are included. The sector employs more than 40 percent of the total population and nearly 70 percent of rural households depend on it for their livelihoods. From tea plantations in the highlands to maize fields in the Rift Valley, horticulture farms in Central Kenya, and pastoral systems across arid counties, agriculture shapes Kenya’s economic stability, trade performance, and food security.

Within this vast agricultural landscape, women form the silent engine that keeps the sector functioning. Across Kenya’s counties, women wake before sunrise to cultivate land, plant crops, manage livestock, harvest produce, and carry food to markets. Experts estimate that women provide between 70 and 80 percent of the agricultural labour force. They are involved in nearly every stage of food production, from planting and weeding to post-harvest processing and marketing. Yet despite this enormous contribution, women rarely occupy the most powerful or profitable positions in the agricultural value chain.

Opening the forum, Kenya Editors Guild President Zubeidah Kananu delivered a powerful reflection on the often overlooked role of women in sustaining both families and food systems. Drawing from her personal experience, she illustrated how women’s contributions to agriculture often go unrecognized despite shaping entire communities.

“My late mother loved feeding people. Through her small kibanda she supported farmers, educated her children, and nourished a community. Her story reminds us that behind every thriving food system are women quietly feeding a nation,” Kananu said.

Her remarks underscored a broader reality in Kenya’s rural economy: women often perform the most demanding work but remain excluded from ownership, financial resources, and leadership opportunities. Across the country, women farmers typically manage small plots of land, many of which they do not legally own. Land titles frequently remain in the names of husbands or male relatives, limiting women’s ability to use land as collateral when seeking credit or agricultural financing.

Professor Mary Mbithi, Team Leader at the Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub at the University of Nairobi and a Professor of Economics, highlighted the scale of this imbalance. While women dominate agricultural labour, they account for only about a third of formal wage employment in the sector and receive less than ten percent of agricultural credit. This imbalance, she noted, significantly limits productivity and income potential across rural communities.

The consequences extend beyond individual households. Studies consistently show that when women farmers receive equal access to resources such as improved seeds, irrigation technologies, and financial services, farm productivity can increase significantly. In Kenya’s case, experts argue that closing the gender gap in agriculture could strengthen national food security and increase rural incomes, creating ripple effects across the broader economy.

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Dr. Lucy Wakiaga, Associate Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center, emphasized that education plays a critical role in addressing these disparities. According to her analysis, persistent gender gaps in education—particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—limit women’s ability to adopt modern agricultural technologies or move into higher-value agricultural enterprises such as agri-processing, digital farming, and supply chain management.

“Educational inequality directly affects women’s productivity and leadership in agriculture,” Wakiaga noted. “If we want inclusive economic growth, we must invest in gender-responsive education systems and remove the cultural stereotypes that discourage girls from pursuing science and technology.”

Beyond education and finance, another barrier lies in the invisible workload carried by women across rural households. In many communities, women juggle farming with unpaid domestic responsibilities such as childcare, cooking, collecting water, and caring for elderly family members. This unpaid labour consumes significant time and energy, leaving limited opportunity for women to expand their agricultural enterprises or pursue leadership roles within cooperatives and farmer organizations.

Kananu also challenged the media to play a more proactive role in shaping the national narrative around women in agriculture. She called on journalists to amplify the stories of women farmers and agripreneurs who are transforming rural economies.

“We must ensure that the stories of women cultivating opportunity, in farms, markets, cooperatives, and agri-tech spaces, are told with the depth, accuracy, and visibility they deserve,” she said. “Agriculture remains the backbone of Kenya’s economy, and women are at the heart of it. Across our counties, women cultivate the land, manage farms, run agribusinesses, and sustain food systems that feed households and support rural economies.”

The forum also highlighted the importance of inclusive partnerships between government agencies, research institutions, development partners, and private sector actors. By supporting innovations such as women- and youth-led quality centers that connect farmers to markets and strengthen quality standards, stakeholders believe Kenya can create a more inclusive agricultural ecosystem.

Looking beyond Kenya, Several countries provide clear examples of how empowering women in agriculture can transform rural economies and strengthen national growth. In Rwanda, reforms granting women equal land ownership and inheritance rights significantly increased women’s participation in farming cooperatives and agricultural decision-making, contributing to improved productivity and stronger rural livelihoods. Similarly, Ethiopia introduced land certification programs that included women’s names on land titles, giving them greater security and encouraging long-term investments in soil conservation and farm productivity.

Beyond East Africa, Morocco has successfully integrated women into agricultural export value chains through cooperatives, particularly in the globally recognized argan oil industry, creating thousands of rural jobs. In India, women-led farming groups and self-help cooperatives have improved access to credit, training, and markets, boosting farm yields and household incomes. These global experiences show that when women are given equal access to land, finance, technology, and leadership roles in agriculture, productivity rises, rural economies expand, and national food systems become more resilient.

Experts at the forum stressed that dismantling gender stereotypes remains one of the most critical steps toward achieving this transformation. In many parts of Kenya, agricultural decision-making and land ownership are still perceived as male responsibilities, while women’s roles remain confined to labour-intensive activities such as planting, weeding, and harvesting. Changing these perceptions requires sustained efforts across education systems, policy frameworks, and cultural institutions.

As Kenya continues to modernize its agricultural sector and pursue economic growth through food systems and agri-business development, stakeholders say empowering women farmers must be at the center of national development strategies. Women are not only producers of food but also entrepreneurs, innovators, and community leaders capable of transforming agricultural economies.

Investing in women farmers is not simply a matter of social equity. It is a strategic economic decision that could determine the future resilience and prosperity of Kenya’s agricultural sector. When women gain equal access to resources, opportunities, and leadership roles, the entire food system becomes stronger, more productive, and more sustainable.

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