Published: May 7, 2026
Kenya’s agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector has reached its largest share of the economy on record. According to the Economic Survey 2026 released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the sector accounted for 23.2% of gross domestic product. That works out to KSh 4.07 trillion out of Kenya’s KSh 17.58 trillion economy.
The growth rate slowed to 3.1% — down from 4.4% in 2024. But even with that slowdown, agriculture remains Kenya’s largest sector by a wide margin.
Agriculture is Triple the Size of Manufacturing
Financial and insurance activities were the fastest-growing sector in 2025. They generated KSh 1.46 trillion. Manufacturing came in third at KSh 1.25 trillion. Agriculture produced more than three times the size of both.
To put it another way: Kenya’s farms and fisheries alone are worth nearly as much as finance and manufacturing combined.
Key Products: Fish Outperforms Tea and Sugar Cane
Growth inside the sector was uneven. Fishing and aquaculture expanded 16.5%, the best performance of any sub-sector. That continues a decade-long run that has pushed its nominal value from KSh 13.6 billion in 2009 to KSh 146.1 billion in 2025.
Animal production grew 3.8%. But crop farming — which alone accounts for 15.7% of total GDP — grew just 2.4% to KSh 2.76 trillion. Tea production dropped 8.0%. Sugar cane deliveries fell 24.7%. Both declines were blamed on below-average short rains during the second half of the year.
Rising Costs Quietly Squeeze Sugar Cane Profitability
There is another trend hiding underneath the headline numbers. Input costs are rising faster than output. The sector’s intermediate consumption — what farmers spend on seeds, fertilizer, fuel, and other inputs — increased from KSh 570.6 billion in 2021 to KSh 940.8 billion in 2025. That is a 64.9% jump in just four years.
Over the same period, the value of what the sector produced grew 59.0%. The gap between those two percentages is small but meaningful. The margin between what the sector produces and what it costs to produce is narrowing.
COVID’s Permanent Impact on Economy
Despite slower growth, agriculture still accounted for 11.4% of Kenya’s total economic expansion in 2025. That made it the second-largest contributor to GDP growth.
Looking back, the sector represented 16.3% of GDP in 2009. It crossed 20% in 2016 and has not fallen below that threshold since. Then came 2020. When Covid-19 suppressed output across other sectors, agriculture’s share spiked to 23.0%. At the time, that looked temporary. Five years later, the share has held and even edged slightly higher.
What seemed like a one-off pandemic anomaly now looks like a permanent reset. Agriculture is not just big anymore. It is structurally bigger than it was before Covid, and it is showing no signs of shrinking back.
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