market

: 11 October 2018; Hits: 6030

County to set up three maize milling plants to help farmers ease marketing problems

The County government of Uasin Gishu plans to set up three maize milling plants to ease up marketing for farmers in the North Rift region who are currently selling their produce at between Sh800 to Sh1500 per 90kg of maize against last year’s Sh3200.

The three milling plants will be set up at a cost of two billion shillings.

“Maize farming has turned up to be a wasteful and unprofitable venture due to insufficient markets and as such we would like to support farmers through cooperatives,” said Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago.

The County is hitherto considered Kenya’s bread basket though maize production has been declining since 2016. In 2017, the county registered a decline in maize production from 4.4m bags in 2016 to 3.7m, a 25 per cent decrease attributed to infestation by the worm, head smut disease and the lethal necrosis disease according to statistics from the county’s department of agriculture.

The farmers have been selling their produce to the National and Produce Board in the recent past but challenges in payments for last season’s maize has been a major problem.

So far the government has only released Sh1.4bn to farmers for maize delivered to NCPB stores out of the total Sh3.5bn owed for over 3.8m bags sold to the cereals board last year.

In this, all farmers owed less than two million shillings have been paid according to the Ministry of Devolution.

Drought tolerant maize variety matures in three months ready for fresh green market

Low maize prices hurting farmers as harvesting season starts

90kg maize

Farmers packing maize in sacks in the past. (Photo: courtesy)

The Ministry of Agriculture has projected an increase in maize production this year from 35.2m bags produced last season to about 46m bags.

Kenya consumes at least three million bags of maize monthly according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. The crop is used to make ugali, a dish made out of maize flour.

In 2017, the shortage of Kenya’s staple food maize, led to increase in maize flour prices from an average of Sh110 to Sh150 for a two kilogram packet forcing the government to subsidize the cost through imports.

In this, the government imported more than 100,000 tonnes of the produce to curb shortage thus allowing millers to sell a 2kg packet Sh90 each, a big relief to more than 70 per cent of Kenya’s estimated 47m people who depend on the crop as food and for commercial purposes.

Write comment (0 Comments)

: 08 October 2018; Hits: 8027

Rising temperatures will push millions of people in Africa into poverty and hunger unless governments take swift action

Climate change has set our planet on fire, millions are already feeling the impacts

By Oxfam

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 8, 2018/ -- Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report detailing progress and pathways to liming global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Responding to the report, Mr. Apollos Nwafor, Pan Africa Director of Oxfam International (https://www.Oxfam.org) said:

"Climate change has set our planet on fire, millions are already feeling the impacts, and the IPCC just showed that things can get much worse. Settling for two degrees would be a death sentence for people in many parts of Africa. The faster governments embrace the renewable energy revolution and move to protect communities at risk, the more lives and livelihoods that will be spared.

"A hotter Africa is a hungrier Africa. Today at only 1.1 degrees of warming globally, crops and livestock across the region are being hit and hunger is rising, [i]with poor small scale women farmers, living in rural areas suffering the most. It only gets worse from here.

"To do nothing more and simply follow the commitments made in the Paris Agreement condemns the world to three degrees of warming. The damage to our planet and humanity would be exponentially worse and irreparable.

"None of this is inevitable. What gives us hope is that some of the poorest and lowest emitting countries are now leading the climate fight. We've moved from an era of 'you first' to 'follow me' - it's time for the rich world to do just that.

"Oxfam calls for increased, responsible and accountable climate finance from rich countries that support small scale farmers, especially women to realize their right to food security and climate justice.

"While time is short, there is still a chance of keeping to 1.5 degrees of warming. We must reject any false solution like large scale land based investments that means kicking small scale farmers off their land to make way for carbon farming and focus instead on stopping our use of fossil fuels, starting with an end to building new coal power stations worldwide."

FAO: Millions of people at risk of hunger malnutrition and poverty due to climate change

OPINION: Ecological farming is key to food security, climate change

Climate impacts in Africa:

Natural disasters such as droughts and floods have been thwarting development in the African continent. Fluctuations in agricultural production due to climate variations along with inefficient agricultural systems cause food insecurity, one of the most obvious indicators of poverty.

The 2016 El Niño phenomenon, which was super charged by the effects of climate change, crippled rain-fed agricultural production and left over 40 million people foods insecure in Africa. Without urgent action to reduce global emissions, the occurrence of climate shocks and stresses in the Africa region are expected to get much worse.

On 5 July this year, Africa is likely to have registered its hottest reliable record temperature in Ouargla, northern Algeria, of 51.3C (124.3F).[ii]

There is mounting evidence that higher temperatures linked to climate change have worsened drought and humanitarian disaster in East Africa, including last year's drought which left over 13m people dangerously hungry.[iii]

Even at 1.5 degrees of warming, climate impacts in West Africa would be devastating. Wheat yields could fall by up to 25 percent,[iv] and at 1.5 degrees Lagos in Nigeria could become a newly heat stressed city like Delhi in India.[v]

In sub-Saharan Africa 1.5 degrees warming by the 2030s could lead to about 40 per cent of present maize cropping areas being no longer suitable for current cultivars, and significant negative impacts on sorghum suitability are projected. Under warming of less than 2 degrees by the 2050s, total crop production could be reduced by 10 percent.[vi]

At 2 degrees of warming heat extremes never experienced before could affect 15 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's land area in the hot season,[vii] causing deaths and threatening farmers' ability to grow crops.

If global temperature rise by more than two degrees by the end of the century, by 2050 this could see daytime temperatures in North Africa (and the Middle East) rise to 46 degrees on the hottest days, which can be deadly.[viii]

Write comment (0 Comments)

: 03 October 2018; Hits: 16248

Meru entrepreneur selling over 20 different varieties of fruit seedlings

Soursop fruit seedlings in M’Tiiri's tree nursery. Photo courtesy.

An agro-entrepreneur from Meru County with about 28 years experience in tree nursery is selling over 20 different fruit seedlings such as soursop (graviola), apples, pears, passion, macadamia, strawberries, lemon and tree tomatoes among others.

Henry M’Tiiri, an orchard management specialist started the venture in 1990 after discovering that most farmers from Mount Kenya region where he hails like growing the fruits for profit. However, the farmers sort the seedlings from a far distance something which hindered their production.

“Because of the favourable climate in this region, farmers are increasingly adopting the farming of different types of fruits for commercial hence providing affordable and readily available planting materials would be of help to the crop producers,” said M’Tiiri.

His turning point in his business was in 2016 when he sold about 600 fruit seedlings to the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni through the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture.

"Officials from the ministry were contacted by Museveni’s farm manager who was looking for clean seedlings, and having been in the business for decades, I was selected to provide the clones,” said M’Tiiri.

Currently the orchard specialist have about 2000 soursop seedlings that he sells at Sh300 per seedling. M’Tiiri says the fruit is in high demand due to its nutrition benefits. “The fruit has all its parts from the root to leaves edible or has medicinal value.”

He adds that the soursop is a fast growing tree that starts producing fruit in the third year. The fruit is sold in some of the major markets in Nairobi that include Ngara, city and wakulima.

M’Tiiri, who also sells grafted fruit seedlings, deliveres a mix of crimson seedless red and green grapes, and his plants adapts well in most parts of the country and East Africa region.

He has about four varieties of passion fruits namely grafted purple passion, sweet granadilla, yellow passion and banana passion.

Orange seedlings, hass avocado and mango seedlings goes for Sh200 each while passion, pawpaw nad strawberry seedlings sells at Sh80 a seedling.

He has an acre farm in Meru and also opened another branch at Kasarani in Nairobi in order to reach more buyers. Grape seedlings are sold at Sh300 a piece and M’Tiiri, who has supply networks around the country, says that he does not have any specifications as to the minimum number of seedlings one can buy.

He offers free transport from the farm to Nairobi for buyers from different regions of the country such as Western, Coast and Rift Valley who get their deliveries through courier services at buyers' expenses.

M’Tiiri advices the farmers intending to plant fruits to prepare their land in advance in preparation for the onset of rains and plant the seedlings just after the downpour for easy establishment of the seedlings in the soil and better growth thereafter. He further recommends the use of farmyard manure instead of synthetic one.

Henry M'tiiri: 0723992728

Write comment (0 Comments)