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: 20 April 2020; Hits: 4954

Farmers find Coronavirus business in helping entrants and adding home delivery

By George Munene

home delivery

Coronavirus is playing both health havoc and business havoc with our world. But with every change that sweeps in, new opportunities arise for those who adapt fast enough, which for many farmers means moving rapidly into new planting of vegetables.

Caleb Karuga, a mixed farmer who keeps chicken, goats, and fish and plants horticultural products on his various farms, reports an uptick in mobile orders--"Could you deliver some managu, spinach and a kilogram of chicken?"--music to any farmer's ears. Consumers have had less time to shop for food before the 7pm curfew kicks in, and the fear of navigating the notorious Nairobi markets has made people explore online delivery options.

"They are too many of us engaged in the production end of agriculture and not enough people focused on adding value to the other points of the value chain," said Caleb. In this, he's seen a niche he plans to fill, offering a scaled-down Amazon delivery service. But he thinks that this will be more than a short-term opportunity. Once people experience the affordability and convenience of having food delivered to their doorstep, he is sure they will remain hooked once the current pandemic is over.

Though many online platforms now offer farmers alternative markets, he argues this has almost made them lazy. "Just posting your product and hoping isn't good enough, we must explore tangible ways of engaging with the end consumer." It’s an opportunity that he believes can create multiple tertiary jobs in agriculture.

The pandemic is also changing buying to favour some crops over others, for which reason Caleb, in the short-term, is majoring in vegetables. Land can be leased for Sh10,000 to Sh15,000 an acre (depending on location and access to water), and most vegetables are ready for harvest within three months. Sukuma, spinach, managu, mchicha - they are all cheap to set up, have a fast growth rate and are dietary necessities.

He warns that with plenty of financial hits, this isn't the time for any newbie farmer to actualise grandiose ideas of a 10-cow zero grazing unit. These are foremost capital-intensive to set up, and for those lucky enough to still be in a job, this is no time to be taking punts with their money, he warns. The cost of animal feed is bound to rise, as most maize will be channeled into feeding people and maize imports into the country are bound to decrease with other countries also grappling with this same pandemic.

With children at home, produce costs rising, reports of job cuts every other day and understandable anxiety about the future, he doesn't see animal products flying off the shelves as these are now luxuries to most people.

But the scope for vegetables, he believes is strong. He encourages those keen to take up farming to study whatever agricultural undertaking they hope to enter and its market dynamics exhaustively. Beyond that, it really helps to have a passion for farming. Those who enter for a quick pandemic buck, won't weather the inevitable failures along the way, he counsels.

In fact, said Caleb, he's been fielding a lot of calls and online questions on agribusiness as many now review this period as a time to take up farming. He attributes the scale of the enquiries to a dearth of extension services to farmers, especially over this period of disruption. Kenyans are reluctant to pay for agricultural expertise, he said, but are finally coming around after scouring and failing to find on the internet the sort of geographical specific knowledge base he's built up in his 10 years in farming.

Pius Muriithi, a farmer at Kiambere,Embu says he, too, will be focused on growing veggies in the short-term, but with an eye on cultivating tubers, as well as cereal and pulses, for the medium and long term. He also sees an opportunity for local farmers to earn more from basic horticultural products such as tomatoes and onions as border control measures cut off imports from Ethiopia and Uganda, countries that have traditionally exported foodstuff to Kenya, but will now have to rethink as they look to shore up their own food reserves.

Mr Muriithi says he's seen the government-run halal abattoir, the only one close to him, close down due to the pandemic. This has created an unsatisfied market that wouldn't otherwise have existed and that could be filled by private capital.

All around, the Covid-19 pandemic is changing the agricultural sector. It’s a time when adaptability and strong research will be the features that deliver the strongest incomes.

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: 16 April 2020; Hits: 6890

Farmers gain financial support from banks as COVID-19 bites hard

By Brian Moseti

farmers Farmers are among the professionals in Kenya that financial institutions are looking to support as the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) continues to take its toll on the economy.

Speakers at a webinar organized by the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) and Working Capital Associates to discuss Kenya’s supply chain disruption and financing options, identified agriculture as one of the critical sectors for economic stability, noting that it deserves great support in these virulent times.

Prior to the disruptions brought about by Covid-19, the country’s agricultural industry was facing bleak times as the worst locust attack in 70 years threatening to wipe out vast areas of crop lands, as some areas of the country struggled with drought.

The Covid-19 pandemic worsened the woes for the country's farmers as it introduced a break in input supply chains, while damaging access to markets.

However, an increasing demand for locally produced food items arising from a closure of borders, has positioned farmers as critical players in the realignment of the economy.

"For some time, agriculture has been a sector that most financial institutions have approached with caution because it is full of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. However, food producers, processors and distributors are among the winners during the Covid-19 pandemic as food remains a critical resource for driving the economy. It is for this reason that we are developing products that increase financial access including better credit facilities," said Simon Ndung'u, Head of Retail at Family Bank.

Philanthropic groups are also teaming up with financial institutions to develop products that increase the access to financial support by players in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), amongst whom are a majority of the country’s farmers.

George Apaka, Lead Agriculture Sector at Mastercard foundation, says that philanthropies are helping in the development of blended finance products as a way of improving the access to finance by players in the agricultural value chains.

“We are giving grants for entrepreneurial capacity building, and in this regard we are working with the country’s banks to develop risk-sharing mechanisms, including some that require us to take up 40-50% of the risk portfolio. We understand the apprehension that has been there for groups like smallholder farmers - most cannot show an ability to pay, quite often due to poor record keeping, but with the kind of de-risking strategies we are advocating for, they can now get proper financial inclusion,” he said..

Similarly, players in the trade finance environment are eager to support domestic and international trade transactions, with farming enterprises being among the most cherished groups as demand for their products soars around the world.

“Trade finance is a good place to start for those looking for players in the exports and imports environment, and we are always willing to offer our support,” said Andrew Darling, Head, Structuring and Operations at Working Capital Associates.

Smallholder farmers constitute almost three quarters of Kenya’s working population and produce 80 percent of the food consumed in the country. Apaka says that if the group is not properly supported, there could be great repercussions on the country’s overall economic performance.

“The Covid-19 pandemic began as a health crisis that is now turning into a food shortage situation. However, even with an increase in food demand, farmers can only produce more if incentivised through support for the acquisition of inputs and access to working capital for other farm processes. Failure to take this into account could lead to scaled down growth in economic performance because agriculture accounts for most of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the region,” he said.

Meanwhile, Apaka, Ndung’u and Darling encourage farmers and SME players to contact their respective institutions for financing.

“We are accessible on digital platforms and in 90 branches around the country - we have not changed our loan requirements, and qualified candidates will always get our support,” said Ndung’u.

Apaka noted that the Mastercard Foundation has established a Covid Resilience and Recovery Program, a funding program whose requirements can be accessed through the organization’s website (https://mastercardfdn.org/covid-19-rrp-qanda/).

-ENDS

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: 07 April 2020; Hits: 4894

New deals for food transport will deliver food security

By Okisegere Ojepat, CEO of the Fresh Produce Consortium of Kenya (FPC Kenya)

ojepat Securing our food supply has emerged as an imperative in the current global pandemic, prompting our government’s announcements of measures to prioritise the supply of food.

But as we reel economically from the current coronavirus measures, other nations, too, are reporting looming food shortages - so serious that Europe has now loosened its import requirements on fresh fruit and vegetables in order to draw more supplies.

For Kenya, as the biggest horticultural exporter in Africa, this move by Europe to open its import door wider represents a rallying call for us all: and it is a call we can rise to.

For most of our agricultural production in recent weeks has been grounded on transport, and we now have a way forward.

Since the world’s countries moved progressively into public closure, and passenger flights stopped, our volume of available air cargo has plummeted. We used to have six airlines taking cargo-only flights out of Nairobi, some, such as Cargolux, carrying 120 tonnes of produce on every flight; some, such as Lufthansa and AirFrance, running daily cargo-only flights.

Together, those flights accounted for about 60 per cent of our air cargo, while cargo carried in the bellies of passenger flights accounted for another 40 per cent.

That 40 per cent has stopped, but so too have the majority of cargo flights. Where we had cargo flights coming in and out that could carry 1400 tonnes a week, we now have enough to transport just 360 tonnes.

A big factor in this is South Africa. Most of these flights used to head to South Africa full of cargo from Europe, then stop at Nairobi on the way back to fill up with fresh produce for the return leg. But South Africa is now detaining cargo crew for 21 days as soon as they land, meaning firms can only fly out to Kenya empty. Some, like CargoLux, have just stopped. Others have reduced the number of cargo flights each week.

Our own curfew has also prevented the free movement of goods, meaning that sometimes we have not even been filling the 360 tonnes. Indeed, many of us saw the reaction to one driver carrying foodstuffs through the curfew, yet fresh produce needs to be transported at night or it gets overheated and ends up missing the local sales and markets, or day’s flights.

However, last week, behind the scenes, we achieved a solution to this, with the registration of a rank of national food trucks.

In a scheme approved by the Ministry of Trade, the trucks have been given stickers for their vehicles – a Fresh Produce Vehicle Pass with the government coat of arms - to allow them to travel at night. The driver and registration details of every one of these vehicles has been lodged with the security services and circulated so that these drivers are cleared to move.

These vehicles are now available to move foodstuffs at night both to export and for our local needs. Indeed, it is our vow that no Kenyan farmer shall be left with rotting fruit or vegetables because they can no longer get transport or get their foods to markets, so we have set up a helpline to guarantee food collections and sales. Any farmer can now call our helpline on 0722 408210 and get their crops picked up and paid for.

We have also launched a scheme whereby any one of these fresh produce trucks can go directly to any estate where the estate managers call us, and sell the produce on the spot, so residents in city estates can get their fresh food without leaving for markets.

For, across our nation, we need these crops.

And Europe needs them too. There is false reporting that we cannot sell our vegetables in Europe now. The opposite is true. It is seeking not only our normal supplies, but different and wider goods with lesser quality issues for the interim.

All the crops we have managed to keep transporting have cleared effortlessly at the other end, and Europe is now introducing a Green Lane scheme to further fast track the importing and transport of fresh foods - as its own fresh food supplies collapse, most notably in Spain, which is suddenly without its migrant agricultural labour force from north Africa.

Thus, we are now chasing the final piece in our own jigsaw to move from rotting food to sold food in Kenya and sold food in Europe, by working to get Kenya Airways to resume flights for cargo alone. At the moment, it has stopped every flight, including its cargo-critical services to London and Amsterdam.

As a nation, we need to back our farmers, our food producers, and our food transporters and achieve our own food security and deliver food security to our buying nations too. It’s possible. We have the produce, we have the transport to the local markets and to the airport, we have planes.

Ours is now only to complete the chain we have almost now rebuilt and rise to the call for our rural food to feed our rural population, our urban population, and European populations too. Because we have the capacity.

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