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Kenya and the U.S. have entered into negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), heralding opportunity for Kenyan agricultural goods, among others, to enjoy increased access to the U.S. market beyond the AGOA.
The Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development estimates that if Kenya were to raise its agriculture exports (amongst other products) to the U.S. by only 5%, Kenya could potentially realize gains in excess of KES 1.8 trillion.
Furthermore, at the launch of the talks, both countries signed a Co-operation framework to build trade capacity to maximize Kenya's utilization of trade benefits in the remaining years of AGOA and support the development and competitiveness of the agriculture sector.
Join us on Thursday August 13, 2020 at 4 p.m. as we delve into the potential benefits of a Kenya – U.S. Trade Agreement on Kenya's Agriculture sector and how the sector can position and ready itself to benefit.
Discussion Areas
- Where does Kenya's competitive advantage lay and how to we ensure the greatest gains from it?
- What lessons we can learn from other trade agreements like the US-Morocco FTA and AGOA – How can we build on these for better outcomes from the FTA?
- How do we prepare the Agriculture sector for investment, knowledge, and technology transfer?
- How can we ensure high value market entry for Kenyan produce?
Click on the link below to register.
Speakers
Betty Kiplagat
Government and Industry Affairs Leader, Africa and Middle East, Corteva Agriscience
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Dr. Bimal Rajnikant Kantaria
Chair, Agriculture Sector Network and Managing Director, Elgon Kenya Limited
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Betty
Kiplagat
Government and Industry Affairs Leader, Africa and Middle East, Corteva Agriscience
Betty, a lawyer by training with more than 18 years’ experience in the agricultural sector, leads the government and industry affairs team in Africa and the Middle East. An important objective for Betty is fostering co-operation between governments and Industry to identify and highlight policy issues that might provide obstacles to the common goal of serving small scale farmers.
Prior to joining Corteva Agriscience, Betty was been involved in establishing the legal office for the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and playing an instrumental role in the AU-NEPAD Agency African Biosafety Network Expertise in Burkina Faso and Uganda.
Following this, she led and directed a cross-functional team as the Africa government affairs lead at Monsanto. Following which, she was with Bayer before joining Corteva.
Betty holds Diploma in Law from the Kenya School of Law, a Bachelor of Law from Wolverhampton University in the U.K. She also holds an LLM in Intellectual Property, Commerce and Technology, from the Franklin Pierce Law Center in the United States.
Betty has served as a Fellow at Michigan State University, College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences in Michigan, USA. She is also an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a Non-Practitioner Barrister of England & Wales.
Dr. Bimal Rajnikant
Kantaria
Chair, Agriculture Sector Network and Managing Director, Elgon Kenya Limited
Dr. Kantaria is the current Managing Director at Elgon Kenya Limited, one of the largest companies in East Africa employing over 1,000 people. The company can trace back its origins since 1898. The company currently has offices in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Zambia and is the largest agriculture inputs company in East Africa.
The Company has won several local and international awards including the Environment Respect Award from Dupont Chemicals.
Also in 2014 and again in 2018 the company was awarded special awards from H.E. the President of Kenya, Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta for partnering with the Ministry of Agriculture in creating a National Farmers Award Scheme.
George Osure
Regional Director, Syngenta Foundation East Africa
George Osure is the Regional Director of Syngenta Foundation East Africa. A role which came after training as an Agricultural Engineer specializing in smallholder irrigation 30 years ago during which I worked in the public sector, moved to the corporate world, and later joined the development world. This currently involves managing agricultural projects that utilize financial, socio-economic, and engineering principles based on smallholder farming business but increasingly relying on digital technology and media platforms.
The exposure I have had over the last 10 years in an organization that has a with a global footprint, had a profound impact on my approach to farmers and farming due to the analytical tools now available to me , as I try to partner with those who are trying to address challenges facing farmers across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
This approach requires George to share knowledge and integrate initiatives through various agricultural industry related platforms which support crop and sector driven value chain partnerships that direct opportunities towards smallholder farmers by linking them to offtakers and eventually consumers.
George’s next frontier is integrating youth, employment, gender, and digital technology in a manner that will accord more transparency to issues related to both stakeholder management in smallholder farming driven value chains.
