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: 15 November 2017; Hits: 7363

Banana pseudo stems value addition creating jobs for Kirinyaga women and youth

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Farmer displays banana fibre on the sun to dry. Photo courtesy.

Integrated Community Organization for Sustainable Empowerment and Education for Development (ICOSEED) initiative in Kirinyaga County has created over 100 jobs for the youth and women in the county who were previously jobless by turning banana pseudo stems into fibre that can be used to make fabrics for bags and table mats for sale.

This initiative was founded by Mr. Patrick Gatere in 2015 to bring into good use banana stems which farmers were felling down to enjoy the banana fruits then could use the stems to feed their cattle or discard it to decay in the farm.

The ICOSEED banana pseudo stems’ value chain has many departments and stages where people are employed to work. “Our processing system has enabled us to employ youth and women in transportation and extraction of fibers, twining and coloring, and accessory making hence reducing crime rate among the youth who were joblessness,” said Gatere.

In addition he says the initiative has strengthened the banana farmer groups with trainings in agronomy, increasing yields by 18 per cent hence providing an alternative source of income for 400 farmers who benefit from the program every year.

Farmers are paid for the fibre extracted from their banana pseudo stems at Sh25 per kg. The fibre is handed over to youth for brushing and finally to women for twining and dying. The coloured threads are passed on to hand loom operators who make fabric. The fabric is used to make bags, clutch purse, table mats and wall hangings.

The Kutus based initiative’s target market includes exhibitions, online shopping, curio shops, tourist hotels, churches and super markets.

ICOSEED’s efforts attracted National Environment Trust Fund (NETFUND) which gave financial support to the tune of Sh812, 500 as well as technical and business support skills enabling the initiative purchase three more extractors and four more handlooms to increase production capacity and produce quality products.

In 2017 and 2016 ICOSEED won Switch Africa Green (SAG) SEED challenge Award and Green Innovation Awards in the Civil Societies category respectively. Gatere says that their future plan is to increase production and number of farmers who supply them with banana stems.

“We plan to Increase the number of farmers supplying banana stems from 400 to 9,000 by 2018, Scale up the production capacity of banana fibre by buying new machinery, including additional mobile fibre extractors, diversify the product range to include sanitary towels within the next two years and establish two new production sites in key banana production areas like Meru and Kisii by 2022,” he said.

ICOSEED can be reached on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Tel: +254 720468046

ICOSEED

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: 14 November 2017; Hits: 5365

Government to dry maize for farmers to stem losses

The government of Kenya under the ministry of Agriculture has announced plans to provide free drying services to maize farmers in the North Rift region which forms the bulk of Kenya’s bread basket. The action is meant to cushion farmers against post-harvest losses and help them manage their produce.

“Ten to 20 per cent of the total volumes of maize harvested is lost in the maize supply chain” said Dr Jane Ambuko, a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s Department of Plant Science and Crop Protection.

She said that some farmers cut their maize and leave it in the field for too long, exposing the crop to fungal rots leading to qualitative losses.

“I would like to confirm that the delivery has been slow since the Eldoret depot opened its doors to receive deliveries. Only 200,000 bags out of out of the expected yield of 1.5m bags have been received so far” said Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bet. He was speaking in Eldoret where he visited the depot to monitor the status of delivery of the important cereal.

Related article:Maize Storage Quality controls for food safety

The delay to deliver the maize has been attributed to the ongoing heavy rains which has affected the quality of produce in farmers’ farms. Most of the maize has been lost due to rotting and swelling. Consequently, most of the produce cannot meet the threshold set by the National Cereals and Produce Board.

Maize drying in Kenya

In 2016, the Kenya’s National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) issued a directive to all of its depots across the North-Rift Region not to accept maize that has moisture content of below 13.5 percent. Anything above this limit is considered unsafe for human consumption and therefore rejected at the point of sale. High moisture content in maize leads to afltoxin contamination which is a silent killer that causes liver cancer and suppresses the immune system. It also retards growth and development of children. People exposed to very high aflatoxin concentrations experience liver failure and rapid death.

Death from aflatoxin infection can occur within 48 hours. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that toxins like aflatoxin infect around a quarter of the world's crops every year, wasting one billion metric tons of food. Kenya is one of the world's hotspots for aflatoxin.

“In 2017, we have reduced the quality to four per cent so that more farmers are able to bring their produce to the depot, hence relieving them the burden of rejection by the board” said Bett.

Harvesting in the North Rift region began in late October and majority of the farmers depend on the sun to dry their grains. It is projected that 37.9m bags of maize, majority of these from smallholder farmers will be realized from both the long and short rains in 2017.

This represents a decline of 4.4 per cent of the long term average (LTA) of 40m bags and a slight increase from the 36.9m bags realized in 2016. The decline in overall production was attributed to reduction in area under maize by 5.1 per cent late rainfall onset coupled with long dried spells mid-season and fall army worm invasion.

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: 13 November 2017; Hits: 10997

Kenya Dairy Board warns of dangerous milk in the market

A sample of milk sold in the Kenya market contains a high bacteria load of up to 10m per milliliter of milk, five times higher than the accepted two million per milliliter according to a Kenya Dairy Board Bi-annual survey report released this month.

Milking machines used to milk a goat/FARMBIZ AFRICA

Related article:Magic Protein for increased Milk Yields

Milk is a basic commodity in Kenyan homes with 215.9m liters sold to processors between January and May 2017 thus posing a big threat to the country’s public health.

While speaking in Voi on November 10^th 2017 in a workshop to discuss milk quality standards in the country, Kenya Dairy Board Manager Kaberia Muriungi said that milk samples tested over the last one year contains pesticides, antibiotics and preservatives unfit for human consumption.

“There are incidences of high drug residues in some samples and this is because the farmers are not observing the withdrawal period after treating of their dairy cows and are after making money” said Muriungi.

“This is an issue we are monitoring closely to make sure there is sensitization and partnership with various regulators so that we are able to test every single drop of milk through the right channels with the right equipment”. Muriungi was speaking in Voi.

Further research by the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in October last year showed that 63 per cent of milk in Kenya is unsafe and may cause cancer and infertility in human beings.

Small-scale traders drive growth of Kenya's milk industry. Over 80 per cent of Kenya's milk output is produced by close to 800,000 smallholder dairy farmers in a sector that also has 350,000 smallholder milk vendors.

In 2016, the subject of milk safety featured prominently in Kenya. In the first case, unscrupulous milk traders and hawkers in Nakuru town were reportedly adding hydrogen peroxide to raw milk in attempt to prolong its shelf life, a recognized method of extending the shelf life of raw milk for up to eight hours that is promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) where cooling of milk is not feasible though not authorized for use in Kenya

In the second case, the Ministry of Health reportedly busted a syndicate involved in processing, packaging and sale of ‘fake’ yoghurt (‘fake’ because it apparently did not contain any milk but was made from a cornflour base).

Milk is perishable in nature and farmers should use appropriate tools in the collection and in the processing. The final products of milk are; cheese, cream, butter, ghee, mala, ultra heat treated milk, yoghurt and skim milk powder. A liter of milk is currently retailing at approximately Sh91 with prices varying depending on location.

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