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: 09 July 2019; Hits: 6968

Seedlings nursery urgently buying garlic onions from all-comers

Speedling Nurseries, an Athi River based seed producer is urgently looking for farmers to supply them with at least two to five tonnes of garlic onions per month.

“This week for instance we are urgently looking for 100kg of the produce but this may go up depending on orders we get,” said Peter Muema, the Operations Manager at the farm.

Any farmer/person interested in supplying garlic onions to Speedling Nurseries can contact them on +254 723 652 280 and inform them of the quantity they have.

“After this, you then send an invoice to us indicating the price and amount to be supplied, if less than 100kg we pay via M-PESA but more than that can pay using cheque or whatever means the supplier wants,” he said.

“Since we are based in Athi River, we normally use Fargo Courier for delivery services and interested suppliers can drop their produce there,”

Thika pickle Company maker buys tomatoes, onions and garlic across Kenya

Farmers in need of urgent market for their over 1.35 tonnes of garlic

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At the moment the nursery buys grade three garlic onions at Sh200 to Sh250 and grade one at Sh400 but this varies based on market demands. They however prefer grade three (small poor quality onions) as they are best in raising good quality seeds due to more cloves (segments).

The farm uses the garlic onions to produce seeds for planting after breaking the dormancy.

“The challenge we realized after conducting trials and research is that farmers who plant garlic in their farms had a germination percentage rate of between 50 to 60 per cent and that’s way we decided to help them reduce losses after buying the seeds by breaking dormancy,” said Muema.

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: 05 July 2019; Hits: 9020

Kisii company ventures into banana ('Ritoke') crisps to provide market for farmers

Nyangorora Banana Processing Ltd Banana Crisps “Ritoke” Brand. Photo courtesy.

A banana value addition company in Kisii County, Kenya is providing ready market for hundreds of farmers in the region by buying the produce from them to make crisps. In this, the farmers who used to sell a bunch at Sh300 to middlemen can now earn up to Sh1,000 a bunch selling to the company.

Nyangorora Banana Processing Ltd which was started two years now has over 500 contracted farmers within Kisii and Nyamira counties.

“We adopted the value addition idea after attending a farmer’s conference in Uganda where we learnt how to make several end products from different varieties of bananas. These products have potential to earn growers more income than selling the raw produce,” said Ibrahim Nyamweya, one of the company directors.

In Nyamira, the company has 24 banana collection centres where farmers harvest and put together their produce for pick-up to the company while in Kisii it has 12 such centres.

“We decided to create the collection centres because our farmers practice small-scale farming and collecting the produce at one given point makes it easier for us to limit the cost of transport,” said Nyamweya.

RELATED CONTENT: Group earns six times from banana value addition

However, due to lack of enough facilities and capital, the young company relies on Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI) machines to make the product.

“The challenge is that we cannot surpass a given limit because we do not have our own facilities and the KIRDI machines we rely on are also being used by other processors hence there are restriction on time and the production capacity for amicable sharing,” said Nyamweya.

The company is currently producing 2,000 to 3,000 kilos of crisps in a month that is sold in open-air markets, schools and individuals who place their orders online on Facebook or WhatsApp.

“Lack of facilities has costs us bigger markets. There was a time Tuskys Supermarket wanted us to supply them with a tonne of crisps per week but we ended up losing it because we do not have the capacity to produce the required measure,” said Nyamweya.

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: 04 July 2019; Hits: 5541

Kenyan flower sector remains steady despite high competition in export market from Ethiopia’s

Mugo Flower Farm kenya Mugo Flower Farm. Photo courtesy.

Despite Kenya being the biggest exporter of flowers from the continent, Ethiopia is emerging one of the worthy competitors in the recent past since the sector contributes 80 per cent to the country’s national GDP as compared to 1.1 per cent the sector contributes to the Kenya’s national GDP.

According to Clement Tulezi, the Chief Executive Office, Kenya Flower Council (KFC), though Kenya still stands top in production and exporting of flowers in the continent, Ethiopia is currently producing much volumes of flowers to the export markets.

“We are still unbeatable in the export markets but we still have a lot to do in terms of marketing the fresh produce and easing its transport to various global markets in order to remain top,” said Tulezi.

KFC aims at promoting economic, social and political interests of the floriculture industry through active participation in the determination and implementation of policies governing sustainable development of the sector.

“Today, we enjoy 38-40 per cent market share in Europe though we cannot sell surpass 45 per cent and that is why there is still need for more markets for the flowers.”

Export earnings from cut flowers grew by 37.7 per cent to KSh 113.2 billion and accounted for 73.6 per cent of total fresh horticulture exports earnings in 2018, according to 2019 Economic Survey by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

Currently, Kenya has 110 varieties of flowers farmed in Kenya and exported to over 60 destinations globally, the most popular roses at 85.6 per cent, carnations at 2.5 per cent and alstroemeria at 0.73 per cent.

“We have over 200 flower farms in Kenya and other numerous smallholders engaged in the production in smaller quantities spread around the country,” said Tulezi.

To ensure the future bloom of the Kenyan flower industry, the sector is already aligning its operations to link its competitiveness to environmental sustainability practices and social standards established in the European markets and other regions globally, as defined by 3Ps – People, Planet and Profit – meeting the current needs in the sector without interfering with the future needs.

How the industry best manages these resources (3Ps) will greatly determine how it will compete with other markets to achieve organizational growth and success.

Kenya’s flower export earnings stood at $750.7 million representing 8 per cent while Ethiopia’s stood at $212 million representing 2.3 per cent in 2018, according to Flower Bouquet Exports ratings.

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