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    By George Munene

    “The farmg­ate price of Grade 1 gar­lic is cur­rently Sh150 per kilo­gram, the spice ma­tures in four months and from an acre a farmer can har­vest at least six tons. This means from just one acre a farmer can rake in Sh1­mil­lion. This makes gar­lic farm­ing a clearly prof­it­able ag­ri­cul­tural en­deavor,” says Stan­ley Gichuki, the pro­pri­etor of Saumu Em­pire.

    Des­pite its price drop­ping in re­cent months due to an in­flux of gar­lic into the coun­try im­por­ted from Rwanda, in the six years he has been in the gar­lic busi­ness, Gichuki says he has not seen its price drop below Sh100 per kilo­gram.

    The major hurdle to get­ting into gar­lic farm­ing is its cost of pro­duc­tion. For a new­bie farmer, grow­ing gar­lic on an acre could run them between Sh160,000-250,000 de­pend­ing on avail­ab­il­ity and ac­cess­ib­il­ity to water. “I often ad­vise farm­ers to start small as they learn the ropes, per­haps on one-quarter of an acre which can cost them about Sh50,000. A mod­est be­gin­ning you can build on is bet­ter than not start­ing at all,” he says.     

    On fin­ish­ing high school in 2011, Stan­ley hawked farm pro­duce to try and make ends meet. While most ag­ri­products were read­ily avail­able, the Nyeri-based farmer could hardly scrounge 10 kilo­grams of gar­lic to sell to cus­tom­ers who were ever in de­mand of it. Hav­ing iden­ti­fied this ob­vi­ously un­der­served mar­ket, in 2014, he em­barked farm­ing on farm­ing the spice on just one-quarter of an acre, which he has built to what is now Saumu Em­pire: a gar­lic farm­ing and breed­ing busi­ness.

    Re­lated News: Herb ex­porter guar­an­tees mar­ket for chilli, ginger, gar­lic con­trac­ted farm­ers

    Re­lated News: Farm­Biz TV:Farmer leaves knives for Sh12m a year from gar­lic and ginger.

    The mar­ket­ab­il­ity of loc­ally grown gar­lic has also been on the up­swing; “Most of Kenya’s gar­lic is im­por­ted from China but with the brief Covid-19 im­posed lock­down in March of last year many con­sumers had a taste of loc­ally grown gar­lic which many con­tend is tastier and more aro­matic to im­ports,” the young farmer elu­cid­ates. Chinese gar­lic is also bleached in chlor­ine to help it keep longer and for whiten­ing. Ad­di­tion­ally, its cloves are treated mak­ing it im­possible for use in propaga­tion.   

    Gar­lic is graded ac­cord­ing to size with a farmer need­ing to get at least 40 kilo­grams; this is classed as Grade 2; per bulb for its com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion. Grade 1 gar­lic weighs over 50-55 grams. Grade 1 gar­lic has a farmg­ate price of Sh300, and Grade 2 fetches half of that; Sh150.    

    “I prefer farm­ing gar­lic to any other crop be­cause of two major factors: its long stor­age time of up to 6 months makes gar­lic an ideal farm­ing choice; in case the price is too low, un­like most ag­ri­cul­tural pro­duce which is eas­ily per­ish­able, farm­ers can hold onto their gar­lic and wait for more fa­vor­able mar­ket con­di­tions. The price of gar­lic is also an­other at­tract­ive pro­pos­i­tion for those look­ing to get into its grow­ing; the spice usu­ally sells for between Sh120 and 300,” he ex­plains.

    Now grow­ing three-acre of gar­lic of his own, and hav­ing an­other 100+ out­grow­ers, it is a point of pride for him that without any ex­ternal sup­port, he has man­aged to grow his busi­ness stead­ily only off what he earned from farm­ing. 

    Stan­ley points out that many farm­ers look­ing to get into the nas­cent gar­lic farm­ing ag­ribusi­ness fail due to a lack of proper ag­ro­nomic know­ledge. To this end he of­fers train­ing at a charge of Sh3000 and con­sultancy ser­vices to bud­ding farm­ers; cur­rently hav­ing dozens of satel­lite farmer pro­jects he is over­see­ing. Saumu also buys gar­lic from its out­grower farm­ers in an ef­fort to meet the crop’s high de­mand. 

    Seeds are the major cost in gar­lic pro­duc­tion; for an acre of gar­lic, a farmer needs 200 kilo­grams of plant­ing cloves which cost Sh400-600 per kilo­gram. Gar­lic farm­ing is as well labor-in­tens­ive, re­quir­ing con­sist­ently avail­able farm­hands. You will also need to have ac­cess to a con­stant sup­ply of water.  Des­pite the ob­vi­ous chal­lenge

    Buy­ing ma­ture qual­ity seed­lings means less pro­duc­tion cost, e.g. thin­ning. The cloves are also dis­ease-free as the sickly are weeded out in the nurs­ery.

    Gar­lic can be planted in basins or beds; this is usu­ally dic­tated by the ir­rig­a­tion method in use. Under ideal con­di­tions, an acre of land can cater to 1400-1500 gar­lic plant­ing basins with one basin meas­ur­ing 2 meters by 1 meter and hold­ing 200 bubs for farm­ers prac­ti­cing flood ir­rig­a­tion. An acre of land should thus have a plant pop­u­la­tion of 280,000. A bulb should have a weight of 110-40 grams. With an av­er­age bulb weight of 50 grams, a farmer can ex­pect a total yield of 14000 kilo­grams. 

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    Re­lated News: Gar­lic farm­ers earn six times more than reg­u­lar onion farm­ers

    In the basins, garlic should be spaced 10 cm by 10cm apart. Ordinary basins measure 2M by 1M ensuring there is enough room for field navigation during routine practices such as weeding and surveying. 

    Stanley advises farmers to conduct soil analysis, which is crucial in establishing their soil profile before setting on commercial garlic production. Its major soil nutrient requirements are Phosphorus, Nitrogen and Calcium. The crop performs best in loam, clay and red volcanic soils that are slightly acidic with 5-7 PH. A bucketful of fine well-decomposed goat/cow manure can be used to fertilise a two-meter basin of garlic. DAP fertilizer is used at planting, CAN fertilizer is applied at first top dressing taking care to furrow it around the plant’s base and not touch its stem due to its high scorching effect. NPK is then used at the plant’s bulbing. Herbicides are used at first weeding with hand weeding done thereafter.

    Garlic is classed as soft neck or hard necked. Hard neck garlic can be grown in highland areas while the soft necked fares better in more arid regions. As with most other vegetables, garlic matures faster in hotter regions. Garlic is majorly affected by blight; it is not suited to areas with temperatures below 14°C.

    Saumu Empire: 0708233861

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    Mukombero

    By George Munene

    Through the Kaka­mega Nat­ural Forest Catch­ment Con­ser­va­tion Or­gan­iz­a­tion, KAN­FCCO, Mukombero farm­ers in Kaka­mega County have signed a deal to sup­ply 100 met­ric tonnes of the herbal root to Ger­many every year.

    With a ready mar­ket se­cured, KAN­FCCO—which cur­rently has about 360 farm­ers in its books—is re­cruit­ing grow­ers of Mukombero (Mon­dia whitei) as well as other medi­cinal tuber plants like Maruku or lesser yam (Di­o­scorea es­cu­lenta).

    “To archive the ex­port quant­it­ies re­quired by Ger­man com­pany Man Fields we will need to ex­pand our pool of farm­ers to at least 2000,” ex­plained James Ligare, KAN­FCCO’s sec­ret­ary. 

    Foun­ded in 2018, KAN­FCCO is an um­brella body charged with the en­vir­on­mental con­ser­va­tion and equal be­ne­fit shar­ing of Kaka­mega’s ge­netic re­sources. To­gether with the Kaka­mega County gov­ern­ment, Min­istry of Ag­ri­cul­ture, and ward ad­min­is­trat­ors it has been man­dated to en­sure suf­fi­cient Mukombero is being pro­duced across the re­gion to meet this grow­ing ex­port de­mand.

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    This is made even harder to achieve given the wild vine flour­ishes ag­ro­nom­ic­ally when grown in trop­ical cli­mates with suf­fi­cient rain­fall. Being a com­munity or­gan­isa­tion, KAN­FCCO also deals ex­clus­ively with farm­ers based in Kaka­mega.

    The few farm­ers grow­ing the in­di­gen­ous aro­matic roots of Mukombero are a sat­is­fied lot:” Com­pared to maize and sug­ar­cane—crops I pre­vi­ously re­lied on—Mukombero has so far given me the best re­turn on my in­vest­ment,” elatedly said Al­fred Wafula, an early Mukombero farm­ing con­vert.

    Thought of sorely as an aph­ro­dis­iac, the men­tion of Mukombero often in­vites aver­ted snick­ers among Kenyans. The woody climb­ing plant however has a myriad of other health be­ne­fits. Among them, as an im­mune booster, and sed­at­ive that al­le­vi­ates symp­toms of hy­per­ten­sion as well as in­som­nia. It also con­tains es­sen­tial nu­tri­ents such as Vit­am­ins A, D, E, and K and vital min­er­als like So­dium, Cal­cium, Zinc, and Iron.

    It can be con­sumed after a quick wash as a fresh root or value-ad­ded powder, nat­ural wine, juice, or yogurt. 

    Mukombero wine

    All these vari­ants of Mukombero can be ac­cessed loc­ally through KAN­FCCO or its af­fil­i­ate out­lets. The body is also keen on adding value to the plant’s roots be­fore ex­port as this will en­sure farm­ers reap max­imum re­turns. 

    The crop takes three years to ma­ture and with good ag­ro­nomic prac­tices is har­vestable every three months for up to five years.

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    “Being a climber Mukombero is best grown in­ter­cropped with trees such as the Ses­bania ses­ban, a soft-wooded tree that grows rap­idly and is use­ful for fod­der and green ma­nure. The soil needs to be farmed to a fine tilth to en­cour­age tuber growth,” Ligare il­lu­min­ated. 

    Farm­ers can pur­chase Mukombero for propaga­tion from KAN­FCCO at Sh 50 a seed­ling or Sh 5000 for one kilo­gram of seed.

    KAN­FCCO: 0738944555/ 0728 738631/ 0721329061
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    ManureAmiranKenyaAgronomistWycliffeObwogeByLabanRobert.JPG

    A Ka­mega County farmer has cut or­ganic fer­til­iser costs in maize pro­duc­tion by rear­ing three pigs, which are help­ing him break down or­ganic waste into ma­nure.

    Wyc­liffe Ochango said con­vert­ing or­ganic waste into ma­nure by nor­mal de­com­pos­i­tion takes months, but the pigs are ‘cata­lys­ing’ the pro­cess.

    “In­stead of wait­ing for one to three months for farm re­fuse to de­com­pose, I de­cided to use pigs to quicken the pro­cess.  Pigs are non-se­lect­ive feed­ers of any or­ganic waste, which is dropped after 24 hours in form of dung,” Ochango said.

    Apart from break­ing it into small parts, the drop­pings have es­sen­tial di­gest­ive en­zyme residues and mi­cro- or­gan­isms that hasten fur­ther de­com­pos­i­tion in the four-feet-by-three-feet pit, which is four feet deep.

    READ ALSO:Biocata­lyst slices ma­nure com­post­ing time by half

    Adding wood ash in­creases the con­cen­tra­tion of po­tassium, cal­cium, and phos­phorus other than re­du­cing soil acid­ity due to its basic nature.

     “I rarely use in­or­ganic fer­til­iser in maize farm­ing. After ac­cu­mu­lat­ing the ma­nure for one to two weeks, I dry and broad­cast it in my one acre. I am re­lieved of the cost of plant­ing and top-dress­ing the maize field,” he said.

    He col­lects 10kg to 15kg of Napier and other grass re­mains from the shed of his Frisian-in­di­gen­ous hy­brid cow daily.

    READ ALSO:Com­post ma­nure as good in crop yield as syn­thetic fer­til­izer sci­ent­ists say

    He also col­lects flour dust from his posho mill and kit­chen ve­get­able re­mains to feed the pig, which churns them into dung.

    The pit is lined with a poly­thene sheet to pre­vent leech­ing of the nu­tri­ents.  The poly­thene sheet also cov­ers the pit to keep off rain and sur­face run-off water.

    READ ALSO:Farmer earns from rear­ing red worms for or­ganic ma­nure

    On the maize field, Ochango  tills with oxen to mix the soil well with the ma­nure. 

    The ma­nure is ap­plied on Napier grass and ve­get­able orch­ard.

    Ochango har­vests more than 15 bags of 90kg maize from the one acre.

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