market

: 29 May 2020; Hits: 4279

Arrowroot prices nearly double in 5 years on surging demand for traditional foods

Arrow roots

By Lydia Gichuki

Arrowroot prices have almost doubled over the last five years driven by rising demand from consumers seeking out the root for its health and nutrition benefits. At the farm gate, the price of the tuber has increased from Sh40 per kilogram in 2016, to Sh70 per kilogram in 2020. In the market, a kilogram now goes for Sh100, compared to Sh50 to Sh70 several years ago.

As a result of the surge, Francis Famula, a farmer from Kakamega County, said he is expecting to get Sh1m from his five acres of arrowroot in six months’ time, when they mature. It was this level of earnings that saw him venture into arrowroots in an area that predominantly grows sugarcane, with the demand for the tuber having soared and pushed prices up as people have shifted to traditional food such as arrowroots in a bid to curb the spread of lifestyle disease such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer.

“I did my calculations and concluded that arrowroots are more profitable than sugarcane, as I will make Sh200,000 from one acre, which holds 5,000 suckers in six months, compared to Sh40,000 from sugarcane in 18 months,” said Famula

Arrowroot has gained popularity in recent years among Kenyans due to its high nutritional value, with the tuber proving rich in energy, fibre, vitamins B6 and C, amino acids, minerals, iron, phosphorus, zinc, potassium, copper and manganese.

The tubers' health benefits include regulating the heartbeat and blood pressure, boosting immunity, aiding in digestion and clearing excess cholesterol.

Demand has also grown as producers have ventured into value addition of the tuber to make flour which is used to make porridge and recommended for children and the elderly as it is easily digestible with high nutritional value.

The flour is also used as a thickener in baking and as a stabilising agent in the making of cookies and biscuits.

Famula who was farming watermelons before venturing into arrowroots said he cannot compare the two, as the return from the tubers is so much higher.

“Although watermelon is very pricy in the market, it leaves very little for the farmer, as a lot of money is used to buy pesticides to stop the pests that attacks the plant while in the farm, which are quite expensive, and also the seedlings are expensive. Arrowroots are rarely attacked by pest and diseases and so all the money goes to the farmer’s pocket,” he said.

He recommends Rwanda’s Dasheen arrowroots for prospective farmers instead of the Eddoe variety, the traditional arrowroots, as they give bigger tubers, takes less time to mature and grow in relatively less swampy areas. Dasheen can be differentiated from the Eddoe as it has bigger leaves.

He encourages more people to venture in this farming as the prices are projected to increase further as the ongoing rains are prohibiting the growth of the tubers, which will result in a shortage.

Famula is selling Dasheen suckers for Sh5 each. His contact is 0724821186

Write comment (0 Comments)

: 19 May 2020; Hits: 4077

Farmers cut mango losses by a third with home-made brick coolers

By Jolene Njambi

pexels mangoes The Rockefeller Foundation through its Yieldwise Foodloss Initiative is showing farmers how to reduce post-harvest mango losses by up to 30 per cent by building simple, home-made, zero-energy cooling brick chambers.

Working with Technoserve, the initiative has so far trained over 20,000 farmers on how to create and use the chambers to increase the shelf life of their mangoes.

According to the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO), farmers are typically losing 40 per cent to 45 per cent of their crop primarily due to poor harvesting and post-harvest handling techniques. A majority of rural farmers lack proper storage facilities, and with fruits ripening at the same time of the year, many sell their mangoes at throwaway prices and are left with many unsold mangoes to rot, cutting their income by an estimated 15 per cent.

“The main challenge that we have here as farmers is the rotting of mangoes on the trees,” said Teresa Kawira, a 45-year-old mango farmer. “This is because of the overabundance of mangoes and lack of affordable technologies to help us preserve our fruits for extended lengths of time.”

“I am hopeful that by applying this technique, mango losses will be a thing of the past,” she said.

With the new technique, farmers have been able to increase their fruits’ shelf life by up to two weeks, measurably reducing losses, according to the Rockefeller Foundation. The coolers also give them more time to negotiate with different market channels and get better prices.

The Initiative has been working with farmers in registered cooperatives, such as Masii Farmers Horticultural Cooperative Society, where Technoserve trained a group of 90 farmers how to build the zero-energy, cooling-brick chambers.

The cooler needs around 800 burnt bricks and two carts of sand, which are locally available at low costs. It takes two to three people to build it, and around to two to three hours to complete.

The teams start by watering the 800 burnt bricks and two carts of sand until they are soaking wet. On the construction site, the area is raked flat to rid it of any pebbles and debris. Sand is then layered onto the flat surface on the site to provide a base to place the foundation of the cooler. Bricks are arranged in a rectangular shape, in nine layers, with an inner and outer wall with spacing between the two. The cavity between the inner and outer walls is filled with wet sand and finally covered with a lid.

The lid is built using raw materials such dried palm leaves, dried grass or dried banana leaves and wooden poles. The farmers are warned against using an iron sheet for a lid as it will increase heat in the evaporative cooler. They are, instead, encouraged to water the sand twice a day to maintain its cooling effect.

Finally, a shed is built over the entire cooler to protect it from sunlight.

“Food loss and waste is a critical issue affecting today’s agriculture sector and food security, also making it a large missed opportunity for more targeted investment. Each year, 30 per cent of all food produced for human consumption – 1.3 billion tons – is lost before it reaches consumers,” said Betty Kibaara, the Director in charge of Food Initiative at Rockefeller Foundation.

The initiative aims to reach at least 35,000 farmers in the Eastern and Coastal regions of Kenya and millions of smallholders across Africa by 2022. It is encouraging farmers to join registered cooperatives in order to access these benefits, as the initiative will reach out to farmers in cooperatives.

Write comment (0 Comments)

: 15 May 2020; Hits: 3713

Tea industry beats clock picking and transporting in daylight

By George Munene

Tea fields For an industry that seemed to be working nearly 24 hours a day, especially during the rainy season, the tea industry in Tharaka Nithi county is bearing the toll of the Covid-19 p[revention measures surprisingly well.

For while others involved in agriculture, such as fishermen and food transporters, have been granted exemptions to operate outside curfew hours, the tea sector is having to operate within strict 5am to 7pm timeframes. This has required a complete overhaul of the usual operating patterns by everyone in the value chain.

Pre-Covid, tea farmers would take their day's delivery to collection points at any time of the day, with the blaring horn of factory lorries marking deliveries that arrived even in the dead of the night.

For farmers who missed out on having their tea weighed and loaded, all they could do is wait in the hope that by the next round of pick-ups, particularly during the peak harvest – their buds had not rotted.

Now, however, pickers get less time working on the bushes, as they have to be done by around 4pm to 5 pm. This gives farm owners time to weigh their day's pickings and pay them pickers - as the mode of payment that's preferred by both tea farmers and pickers, versus older methods that paid by the size of area picked, time spent, or as a fixed day's wage.

The tea is then delivered to the local pick up points, either by 10am to 12pm to be picked up that afternoon for short-run deliveries, or by 6:30 pm to be picked up by the factory early the next morning for longer-distance deliveries.

Being further away from the tea factory, which means making evening deliveries, disadvantages farms further, as their picking hours are further reduced in order to get tea weighed, loaded, delivered and back home by the 7pm curfew.

The tea is then locked in for the night, until the 5 am pick-up the following day, when it's weighed and loaded onto the lorry.

With the heavy rains, this is a period of increased harvests, meaning some farmers are even forced to lay their leaves under shelter outside, but there have been very few cases of theft, with police officers usually patrolling to enforce the curfew orders.

Farmers in Tharaka Nithi have also been benefitted from a new private entrant into the tea space, the Njeru Tea Factory. The arrival of a local, private buyer has ensured there are no cases of tea going bad, which can normally happen when the collected tea volumes are high, and might have been worse still given that collection times are now shorter.

To help the industry in keeping going, counties, such as Muranga, have given 120,000 free masks to be delivered to tea farmers through ten factories within the region.

Tea factories such as Weru in Tharaka Nithi county have taken Covid-19 preventative measures by offering their farmers free masks and putting up washing points at tea delivery points across the county. Farmers are also urged to stick to the 1.5 meter rule while weighing and loading their tea.

The company has also used its reach with the most rural of rural populations and carried out sensitisation efforts.

However, with no Covid 19 infections within the Meru region (the nearest reported case being at neighbouring Isiolo), laxity is now seeping back in, with people no longer adhering to the rules as strictly as before.

Write comment (0 Comments)