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| Maize Farmers in Kenya |
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| research4development.info |
Since
its beginning, Kenya has been mainly an agricultural nation. Because of this, the entire nation
relies on the uncontrollable forces of nature. Each year, droughts and floods can wreak havoc on crops and the living standards
of Kenya's people. Recently, attempts
have been made to make Kenya more
reliant on light industry, but these efforts have been mostly unsuccessful.
The
most common types of farming in practice today are cash-crop farming and subsistence farming. A few farmers use a combination
of the two, but subsistence farming is used by the majority.
Subsistence farming crops are corn, millet, rice, sweet potatoes, coconuts, pineapples, bananas, and cassava. Corn, also known
as maize, is grown more than the other subsistence crops because of its important role in making ugali, a type of dough that
is the staple of a Kenyan's diet. Cash crops include coffee, tea, maize, wheat, sugarcane, a natural insecticide called
pyrethrum, and cotton. Although coffee beans used to be Kenya's
leading export, their rapidly lowering prices have bumped tea up as the primary export, making almost 20% of export earnings
from tea sales. The government is still working to increase cash-crop growth so the country's exports will match the value
of the imports.
Kenya is far ahead of many other East
African countries when it comes to industry. Manufacturing provides jobs for 14% of working Kenyans, as well as making up
nearly 11% of the GDP. Production and processing of textiles, clothing, cement, meat, food, beverages, dairy, chemicals,
and motor vehicles are important to the economy.
| Front of a Kenyan 100-shilling banknote |
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| student.britannica.com |
The official currency of Kenya is the Kenyan Shilling. One shilling is equal to 0.002 United States Dollars, or two
cents.
As the source of foreign income to
Kenya, tourism is considered the most important. Although several factors in recent
years have hurt Kenya's tourism, they
still receive about a million visits each year. Taking into consideration how important conservation of wildlife is, as well
as the fact that Safaris are a gigantic tourist attraction, tourists have been asked to refrain from hunting on most of the
25 national parks and 23 reserves in Kenya.
| Monkeys in a National Park |
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| nationalgeographic.com |
Even though Kenya struggles
with natural disasters and political challenges, Kenya
is mostly stable and continues to make economic progress. The future of Kenya
will be greatly affected by whether or not the initiatives to better education and health are taken. As Kenya progresses,
the fairly new country can become stronger by looking at its past and seeing that, despite numerous challenges, the people
of Kenya have come together and have been able to overcome their challenges to become one of the most successful African countries.
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