Fresh farmer registration set to push national database past 7 million
The initiative is designed to simplify access to government support, such as fertilizer subsidies, and will be undertaken by agricultural officers at the county level.
The government will next week begin a fresh drive to register an additional 500,000 farmers onto the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS), bringing the total number of farmers on the national database to just over seven million.
So far, 6.45 million have been listed in the earlier phases.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, the two-week exercise will launch on Monday in Murang’a county before expanding to all 47 counties, including Nairobi and Mombasa, and will continue until September 8, 2025.
The initiative is designed to simplify access to government support, such as fertilizer subsidies, and will be undertaken by agricultural officers at the county level.
“To ease the registration process, the government will work with County governments to deploy additional personnel to carry out the registration,’’ the statement reads in part.
During this period, the government will also register all coffee farmers to align with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which prohibits the sale of coffee produced in deforested areas within the EU.
This will involve physical verification and geo-mapping of farms using GPS coordinates to assure European buyers of the origin of Kenyan coffee.
Principal Secretary in the State Department of Agriculture, Dr. Kipronoh Ronoh, said the digital registration will improve government planning, enable timely interventions, and support sustainable and modern farming practices that promote food security and surplus production for export.
He explained that KIAMIS has introduced an e-voucher system, accessible via mobile phones, through which farmers can register and access services. Ronoh also commended the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other partners for their role in supporting digital farmer identification.
The database enables targeted advisories, better management of inputs and credit, access to mechanization, and gives policymakers a clearer picture of the sector to monitor production patterns, assess subsidies, and allocate resources more effectively.
The model has already drawn interest from Bangladesh, Mozambique, and South Africa, which are exploring ways to replicate it.
The initiative, which is the first of its kind in Africa, is funded at Sh40 billion with support from FAO and the Swedish government.
It is a key component in the implementation of the Agriculture Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) 2019–2029.
So far, 17,096 youths have been recruited as special enumerators, known as agri-entrepreneurs, to help deliver comprehensive farmer registration across the country.
