The National Potato Council of Kenya (NPCK) participated in the pre-launch of the Kenya AgriConnect Compact on 16 June 2026 at Radisson Blu Hotel, Upper Hill, Nairobi. Representing the Council at the event were members of the NPCK team, who joined government officials, development partners, private sector players, and other agricultural stakeholders to discuss the implementation of the ambitious five-year agricultural transformation agenda.
The Kenya AgriConnect Compact is aligned with the World Bank’s global AgriConnect Initiative and is expected to guide the transformation of Kenya’s agricultural sector between 2025 and 2030. The initiative seeks to increase agricultural production, create decent employment opportunities, strengthen food systems, and enhance the overall competitiveness and resilience of the sector.
The Compact is anchored on four strategic pillars that aim to accelerate agricultural growth and development. These include increasing agricultural production and productivity by 50 percent; scaling up value addition, agro-processing, and aggregation systems across Kenya’s priority value chains; expanding access to profitable domestic and export markets through market systems transformation; and strengthening key enablers such as policy coherence, institutional capacity, agricultural finance, digital systems, and contract enforcement.
NPCK played an active role during the consultative process leading to the development of the Compact by providing industry data, technical expertise, and insights on the status of Kenya’s potato industry. The Council’s contribution supported the Technical Working Group in identifying the potato value chain as one of the country’s priority agricultural value chains under the initiative, recognizing its significant role in food security, nutrition, employment, and economic growth.
The Kenya AgriConnect Compact has set ambitious targets to be achieved by 2030. These include creating approximately 2.48 million new and better jobs, increasing agricultural productivity by 50 percent, reducing food insecurity by half, cutting imports of maize, rice, and edible oils by at least 50 percent, expanding high-value agricultural exports by 60 percent, doubling agro-industrial value, and increasing irrigated land from 760,000 acres to 1.5 million acres.
NPCK’s participation in the pre-launch reaffirmed its commitment to contributing to national agricultural transformation and ensuring that the potato value chain remains at the forefront of Kenya’s food systems agenda. Through continued collaboration with government, development partners, and private sector stakeholders, the Council will continue to advocate for policies and investments that enhance productivity, strengthen markets, promote value addition, and improve the livelihoods of potato farmers across the country.
