Kenya Country Book

Last update: October 2024

This page contains information about some of the data available in the FEWS NET Data Explorer (FDE) for Kenya. This is not a comprehensive guide.

For information about using the filters and fields for specific domains in the FDE, see Choose a Data Domain.

Summary table

Country food security context

Statistical reporting units

Kenya usually uses administrative units as their statistical reporting units.

Administrative (admin) units are the geographical areas into which a country is divided. FEWS NET uses the following terminology: National boundary = admin 0, First sub-national division = admin 1 (e.g., states in the United States), Second sub-national division = admin 2 (e.g., counties in the United States), and so on.

Admin 1: County

Admin 2: Sub-district

Admin 3: Constituency

FEWS NET uses four annual boundary sets to define the administrative reporting units found in the country over the 1970-present timeframe. 

• 1982 set: Covers the period between 1966-1988.

• 1989 set: Valid through 2006. 

• 2007 set: Covers the 2007 and 2008 period.

• 2013 set: Covers 2009 to present period.

Note that the county name Murang’a requires close attention to ensure that the apostrophe, or other symbol used in the name is consistent in all instances of that county’s name.

Crop data

Explore our crop data.

View our documentation on using the Crop Domain.

Crop estimate data sources

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development is the most recent principal source of crop estimates for Kenya.

Kenya’s crop statistics were first comprehensively and formally reported in 2003 by a quasi-governmental body, the Kenya Institute for Public Policy, Research and Analysis, KIPPRA in a publication titled the “Kenya Agricultural Sector Data Compendium”.

In 2006, the Ministry of Agriculture revived a former publication series now called the Kenya Economic Review of Agriculture to improve its ability to disseminate official annual crop statistics. 

FEWS NET began assembling its own database of Kenyan official crop statistics in the late 1990s.  A joint FAO and Kenya Ministry of Agriculture effort, CountryStat, intended to help centralize Kenyan crop statistics was active for several years before closing in more recent times.  

In 2015, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics partnered with each county government to publish a County Statistical Abstract, which included agricultural information for 2013 and 2014, with a new round of Abstracts being prepared in a few counties in the early 2020s.  Despite the fact that each county’s crop production figures are produced in association with its county Agriculture agent, the estimates often differ substantially with those disseminated by KilimoStat. The reason for the difference is not known.

At about the same time, the Kenyan Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA), published a “Year Book of Statistics, 2014” containing crop production and trade data.  The AFA indicates it is working with the Ministry in a joint effort to improve the management of all crop estimates. AFA crop statistics are particularly focused on industrial crops (e.g. tea, coffee, sugar, fibers).

All these publications, and others, are available in the FEWS NET Document Management System.

As of 2024, the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, also referred to as Kilimo debuted the KilimoStat web platform which includes sub-national crop statistics for most of the country’s crops, for the 2012-present period. It is the principal source now for the FDW net holdings for that same period.

Crop reporting units

After a rapid increase in the creation of new Admin 2-level districts from 72 in 2005 to 265 in 2010, Kenya’s High Court declared all new districts created after 1992 unlawful. In 2013, provinces were abolished and 46 counties, plus Nairobi, were formally adopted as the country’s new Admin 1 entities. 

The rapid expansion of districts was apparently not able to be matched by a corresponding rapid increase in Ministry of Agriculture personnel and crop estimation resources and the very spotty 2008 and 2009 crop results reporting was one result.  Figures given for the 2007-2011 period should only be used cautiously.   

Year and season definition

Kenya has two cropping seasons used in official statistics:

• Long-rains: The main crop producing period, which occurs between March and the end of May.

• Short-rains: Generally arrive in late October and continue through December. The short-rains harvest therefore spills into the next calendar year. 

For recent years, Kenyan harvests and crop statistics have normally been dated by the calendar year in which the long- and short-rains fall, but include the sum of what is produced in the long rains harvest and the short rains harvest in the following calendar year.

FEWS NET Kenyan annual and seasonal crop statistics follow the Kenyan procedures and are denoted by the calendar year in which the rains fall.  This means that the Kenyan crop year is start-aligned, denoted as YYYY=YYYY/ZZZZ in a two-date notation.

Example: 2019 statistics include the long rains harvest in mid-2019, and the short rains harvest in late 2019 and early 2020. 

Whether this practice has always stood is still a question. The seasonal composition of the annual statistics provided by semi-official sources in Kenya remains difficult to confirm for early years (70s-90s). 

A close comparison of the annual crop statistics reported by both Kenya and the FAO suggests that there were moments when both were using the same summing procedure, and other periods in which there may have been two different procedures being used. However, FAO annual crop figures for Kenya should differ from the historical record kept by Kenya due to the difference in their standards:

• The FAO nominal standard is to sum the seasonal harvests by adding together the short-rains harvest and the long-rains harvest following it, both happening in the same calendar year.

• The current Kenyan standard, as confirmed by officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, is to sum the long-rains harvest with the short-rains harvest following it. 

Seasonal harvests in Kenya are much more complex than the simple long-rains/short-rains dichotomy generally used for statistical purposes.  The following is a fine-grained description of them offered by a Kenyan official in the Ministry of Agriculture in 2024:

Kenya experiences a Unimodal and Bimodal cropping calendar. 

• The Unimodal is found in places with higher altitude, mostly parts of North Rift regions (West Pokot, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu, Elgeyo-Marakwet, Nandi, Kericho, Laikipia), higher parts of Bungoma and Kakamega, and higher altitude places in Central regions (Meru, Nyeri, parts of Nyandarua and parts of Nakukru). In these counties, planting is done once between March-April for long rains and harvested in November-December. 

• In the medium altitude zones of Western, Nyanza, Central and North Eastern, planting is in March-April long rains and harvesting is in July-August; and short rains planting is in September-October and harvesting in December-January. 

• In Eastern regions to the Coast, planting is in March-April long rains and harvesting is in July-August; short rains planting in October-November and harvesting in February-March of the following year. Note that for the Eastern Region, the short rains are the most reliable, hence their main production season. 

• There is a small belt comprising Bomet and Narok to Nyamira where the planting is done in January-February and harvesting is in July-August. Here, some farmers are able to plant another long rains crop in April-May and harvest in September-October (relay farming); some farmers plant short rains in September-October and harvest in December-January. 

• The onset of the long rains has become more erratic leading to planting times stretching from March to May.

Note that these descriptions apply to seasonal/annual crops with growth cycle of 4 to 7 months (most cereals and pulses, nuts and oil crops). But short growing crops (horticulture) have varied planting and harvesting periods. 

Crop statistics context

Most of the crop statistics found in the FDW Kenyan crop database are provided for an Annual period. 

During the almost chaotic expansion of new districts in 2005-2010, the country’s crop statistics collection system was unable to keep up with the rapid changes, and generally continued reporting on 1992 boundaries. Today, this means that a county which existed as an Admin 2 reporting unit before 1992 is likely comparable in shape, location and crop statistics to its current Admin 1 self, facilitating time-series comparisons.

Nevertheless, large gaps in the national crop statistics time-series database exist, especially in the 1970-1980 and 2005-2010 periods. The important maize, wheat and bean crops were better reported than others between 2005-2010, but the 2008 and 2009 crop figures are particularly spotty, even for the main crops.

Seasonal crop statistics have become more available recently in the KilimoStat data. Kenyan crop data in the FDW includes seasonal estimates when and if they are made available. To date, however, estimates for Long- and Short-rains harvests are often notably inconsistent with annual figures, no matter how they are combined into an annual estimate. In the FDW, they are only made available upon request. 

Note that KilimoStat’s area estimates are described as harvested area. In that case, theoretically, a crop for which there is no production should have a harvested quantity of zero. There are some estimates where the quantity estimate is nil, but also shows a large harvested area estimate. That may be an attempt to give information about planted area, but this is not known for certain. Therefore, in the FDW, any area estimates provided by KilimoStat for any crop with a zero value are marked as a planted area estimate.

Crop data are updated by the Ministry of Agriculture for each season. These seasonal data are provisional for most crops and confirmed/completed at end of the year. Therefore, seasonal results may not exactly match annual results.  

Kenya’s Agriculture and Food Authority - AFA commodity data (mostly industrial or market-oriented crops) are currently duplicating many crop statistics reported by the Ministry of Agriculture.  Current FDW policy specifies that such duplicate data will be retained, but an Alt indicator will be added to the Source document field, meaning that public users will be notified why they are/are not included in a download.

Based upon the 2013 Crops Act, the AFA data are supposed to eventually replace Ministry of Agriculture data reporting for specified crops, so at some point in the future, when AFA data are more comprehensive in their reporting than the Ministry, this policy should be reviewed. 

Methodology

No information is yet available to describe the current and past national methods used in estimating the country’s seasonal and annual production.