For many years farmers in western Kenya have been into sugarcane farming as their chief cash crop. However, things are changing as the venture is no longer sweeter as it used to be due to a number of challenges.
These include drought, poor prices and lack of proper policies that have pit controversies between the government and sugarcane lobby groups leaving the growers a lost lot.
In fact, according to data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the price paid to farmers for sugarcane decreased by 4.3 per cent to Sh3,816.0 per tonne, in 2019 something which has been attributed to increased import of the sweetener.
It is because of these decreased earnings that farmers are forced to look into other ventures, preferably horticulture to redeem themselves.
So far, over 200 farmers in the western region who were previously doing sugarcane are now growing pawpaw fruits that have had a rising demand thanks to an agro-processing firm established in the region currently offering direct market to the farmers.
Kenya Papaya Products Ltd (KPPL) which is located along the Chavakali – Kaimosi Road in Vihiga County in collaboration with Great Lakes Breeders Limited (GLBL) is now buying the produce from farmers at a competitive price in addition to free transport of the produce from aggregation centres.
In the partnership, KPPL is concerned with value addition making papaya jam from the fruit. This is the company’s main product though there are also other pawpaw products such as papaya leaf tea, papaya leaf extract, papain, papaya seed oil, and papaya seed cake used for livestock de-worming and animal feeds.
GLBL on the other hand is responsible for sensitising, recruiting and coordinating farmers towards pawpaw production process as well as harvesting in the whole region. This is in addition to providing farmers with clean seedlings for planting.
“We have already sensitized over 1,300 farmers from Vihiga, Kakamega, Busia, Kisumu, Nyamira, Kisii, Homabay, Migori, lower Kericho, and Siaya counties and contracted over 200 active growers,” said Thomas Openda, GLBL field agronomist.
They (GLBL) are also responsible for clustering farmers in manageable groups for training and fruit collection purposes.
In Vihiga alone, there are already established farmer centres in almost every constituency. The centres are used for a number of purposes which include seedlings collection, training, produce collections, and farmer payments.
GLBL recommends Solo, Sunrise, Red royale F1 and Malkia F1 pawpaw varieties which have different but super qualities and characteristics for diverse markets.
Perter Owino is a farmer in Migori County who started working with KPPL in 2018 after abandoning sugarcane farming and he has never looked back.
