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    Or­ganic farm­ing provides al­tern­at­ives to failed farm tech­niques

    Kenya’s or­ganic farm­ing has fast gained grounds with over 200,000 farm­ers prac­ti­cing and over 15,000 ex­port­ers in­volved in sale of or­gan­ic­ally pro­duced crops, a ven­ture that has also seen part­ner­ships and or­ganic only mar­kets open up in the coun­try as tra­di­tional farm­ing meth­ods fail.

    Den­nis Mukai from Nyeri made a de­cision to ven­ture into or­ganic farm­ing three years ago, news that were greeted with skep­ti­cism from his coun­ter­parts who saw nu­mer­ous pit­falls in the ex­er­cise. “Or­ganic farm­ing was still an alien prac­tice in my loc­al­ity and most farm­ers were used to con­ven­tional cul­tiv­a­tion of food crops using syn­thetic fer­til­izers and pesti­cides. They warned me against plunging into the un­known,” Mukai said.

    Mukai has however de­fied dooms­day pre­dic­tions from scep­tical neigh­bours to be­come a for­mid­able voice of or­ganic farm­ing in the lar­ger Embu County. He in­ven­ted a pop­u­lar or­ganic avo­cado tree called Jack2 which has gained pop­ular­ity across Kenya and over­seas for pro­du­cing fruits rich in min­eral and vit­amin con­tent. Jack2 has out­paced other con­ven­tional vari­et­ies in pro­duc­tion of avo­cado fruits. Mukai re­vealed that strong in­flu­ence from his father in­spired him to ex­plore in­nov­at­ive op­tions that would im­prove qual­ity of avo­cado trees in his back­yard.

    “My father was given avo­cado seeds by mis­sion­ar­ies and this gave me a head start in cul­tiv­a­tion of this ed­ible fruit. It took me thirty years to in­vent Jack2 through cross­breed­ing local vari­et­ies with other spe­cies,” said Mukai. He dis­closed that de­mand for Jack2 avo­cado has grown stead­ily for the last three years.

    “Many Kenyans are buy­ing the Jack2 seed­lings which take three to four years to ma­ture and pro­duce avo­cado. The fruit is very pop­u­lar owing to its nu­tri­tional value,” he said. Mukai has partnered with Kenya Or­ganic Ag­ri­cul­ture Net­work (KOAN) to pro­mote Jack2 avo­cado in the local mar­ket. Be­sides Jack2, Mukai also grows or­ganic cof­fee and mac­ad­amia nuts in his four acre an­ces­tral farm. An ex­pand­ing mar­ket niche for or­ganic products loc­ally and over­seas has in­spired small scale farm­ers to em­brace or­ganic farm­ing in greater num­bers.

    Mi­chael Gitau, the Chair­man of Thika-based Cent­ral Farm­ers and Con­sumer Or­gan­iz­a­tion, says that or­gan­ic­ally grown fruits and ve­get­ables have gained pop­ular­ity among middle and high in­come house­holds in Kenya. Gitau heads an um­brella body of 28 or­ganic farm­ers groups that rep­res­ent 5,000 small scale farm­ers in Thika County. He says that these farm­ers are grow­ing fruits such as pine­apples, paw­paw and or­anges using com­post ma­nure.

    Gitau re­marked that “farm­ers are earn­ing a lot of money from or­gan­ic­ally grown fruits which they sell to af­flu­ent com­munit­ies in Nairobi and small towns within Thika County.” Or­gan­ised mar­kets for or­ganic products have en­sured that small scale farm­ers are shiel­ded from ex­ploit­at­ive middle­men. Triza Njoki,the mar­ket­ing Ex­ec­ut­ive, Green Dreams says that “people now can buy or­gan­ic­ally grown ve­get­ables, fruits and a host of value added products like honey, olive and coconut oil in shops.”

    Green Dreams is pro­mot­ing es­tab­lish­ment of or­ganic shops in stra­tegic geo­graph­ical points in Nairobi to en­sure that or­ganic products are sold in a struc­tured man­ner. Ac­cord­ing to Njoki, products sold at the shops are sourced from small scale farm­ers.
    She adds that Green Dreams has de­veloped home de­liv­ery sys­tems that make it pos­sible for a cus­tomer to order a bas­ket of as­sor­ted fresh fruits and ve­get­ables.

    The mar­ket for or­ganic products in Kenya has been on a growth tra­ject­ory and farm­ers are as well keen on ob­tain­ing a slice of the pie in the global or­ganic mar­ket cur­rently es­tim­ated at $50 mil­lion. The European Union is the largest mar­ket for Kenyan or­ganic products that in­clude fruits and ve­get­ables, honey, herbs and spices and es­sen­tial oils.

    Samuel Ndungu, the Na­tional Mar­ket De­vel­op­ment Ad­visor, Kenya Or­ganic Ag­ri­cul­ture Net­work (KOAN) notes that “de­mand for or­ganic products by Kenyan  con­sumers has risen. Cur­rently, every green gro­cer wants to start an or­ganic sec­tion in their shops.” He cited or­ganic shops in Karen and Lav­ing­ton sub­urbs of Nairobi that were opened re­cently.

    Ndungu re­vealed that KOAN has partnered with mu­ni­cip­al­it­ies to de­velop or­ganic farm­ers’ mar­kets in many Kenyan towns. The en­tire or­ganic sec­tor in Kenya is worth $10.5 mil­lion an­nu­ally and is grow­ing. Ac­cord­ing to Ndungu, the do­mestic mar­ket com­prises 10 per­cent of that share. The rise in de­mand for or­ganic products glob­ally has cre­ated op­por­tun­it­ies for Kenyan small­hold­ers.

    An es­tim­ated 15,000 farm­ers in Kenya are in­volved in cer­ti­fied or­ganic pro­duc­tion and ex­port, while a fur­ther 200,000 farm­ers are doing or­ganic farm­ing for do­mestic mar­ket. Ndungu stressed that or­ganic farm­ing has mul­tiple be­ne­fits to farm­ers in terms of food se­cur­ity and rev­enue streams.

    “An­other ad­vant­age with or­ganic farm­ing is that farm­ers are able to sell dir­ectly be­cause middle­men are phased out in the value chain. Farm­ers as well in­ter­act with the mar­ket closely and un­der­stand latest dy­nam­ics,” Ndungu said. The af­flu­ent urban middle classes and pop­u­la­tions above forty years form the bulk of con­sumers of or­ganic products.

    Ac­cord­ing to Ndungu, “this is a pop­u­la­tion seg­ment that un­der­stands the health be­ne­fits of eat­ing or­ganic foods and has dis­pos­able in­come to buy them”.  Kenyan or­ganic products have met in­ter­na­tional stand­ards thus boost­ing their com­pet­it­ive­ness in the over­seas mar­kets. These stand­ards are man­dat­ory and are set by European Union, the United States and Japan.

    Jack Juma, Pro­gram Man­ager, in charge of Stand­ards and Cer­ti­fic­a­tion at KOAN, cla­ri­fies that these stand­ards are very strin­gent and have cost im­plic­a­tion to farm­ers. “No ex­port can be car­ried out without cer­ti­fic­a­tion which en­tails scru­tin­iz­ing the en­tire pro­duc­tion chain from ag­ro­nomy prac­tices, pro­cessing, trans­port and stor­age,” said Juma.

    KOAN is as­sist­ing farm­ers with train­ing and ca­pa­city build­ing to boost their un­der­stand­ing of these stand­ards.

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