Nakuru County Government is implementing a raft of strategies to enhance value chains in the crops and livestock sectors to support the pillars of food and nutrition security to ultimately help grow exports and reduce imports.
Agriculture Chief Officer Mr Newton Mwaura explained that value addition and agro-processing of agriculture and livestock products represented a huge potential source of livelihoods for farmers adding that the County administration was keen on investing huge resources towards promoting dairy, potato, maize, pyrethrum, avocado and oil crops value chains among others.
On the national level, Mwaura observed that Kenya had long been exporting commodities in raw form adding that with increased investment in value addition, volumes of Kenya’s enriched commodities and finished products would increase and this would help the country stake a bigger claim to local, regional, and global market shares.
He stated that the County was shifting its focus from local markets to new and fast-growing markets regionally and internationally as a way of attracting premium prices for small holder farmers’ produce and subsequently improve their incomes.
The County Government, Mwaura added, was currently partnering with a Japanese company, Rinnesha Company Limited based in the Aichi Prefecture city of Tsushima, to train the small holders on how to manufacture mosquito coils from pyrethrum as a value addition where more than 500 farmers from four pyrethrum farmer groups under the umbrella Nakuru Pyrethrum Union from Molo and Subukia sub-counties, have been equipped with the skills.
The chief officer said the organic mosquito coils were awaiting registration by the Pest Control Products Board (PCPB).
Mwaura further said they had received from Nakuru Pyrethrum Union the first consignment of 1.5 tons of dry pyrethrum flowers and 15 tons of enhanced pymarc dried pyrethrum flowers and stock powder, to be used in the manufacture of mosquito coils by Rinnesha Company Limited for export to Japan.
“Through the Nakuru pyrethrum union, farmers will be able to sell the mosquito coil, pyrethrum flower powder, pyrethrum stalk powder, and improved pymarc, which will also help increase their bargaining power,” stated the Chief Officer.
In 2023, Mwaura said Nakuru had 3,884 acres under pyrethrum producing 1,273 metric tonnes valued at Sh236.9 million adding that the production was expected to grow because of the continued pyrethrum seedlings support programme to farmers by the County and that the devolved unit was seeking to increase the acreage under pyrethrum to 30,000 acres across the eight pyrethrum growing Sub counties.
In line with the Kenya Kwanza manifesto, Mwaura said the County government had put in place measures to revolutionize agriculture from a subsistence activity to an agro-enterprise that provides residents in the region with employment gainful employment.
Sustained agricultural growth was critical in uplifting standards as well as generating rapid growth to the County and the nation in general, added the Chief Officer.
Hiromitsu Lio, the Executive Director of Rinnesha Company Limited noted that coil production can be done almost entirely by hand, without the use of complicated machinery.
“We hope we can help Kenya use Japanese know-how as our company has over three decades of experience manufacturing and selling mosquito coils made from natural ingredients,” explained Lio.
He noted that the use of large machinery for processing pyrethrum was standard in Kenya, requiring a huge initial investment for any would-be entrepreneur.
To bring hand-rolled mosquito coils to market in Kenya, Lio emphasized the need to create a new industry in which producers are involved in the commercialization of their products, which leads to higher incomes and employment for small-scale farmers.
Lio argued that there was an advantage unique to using pyrethrum. In recent years, he said, it has been established that some mosquitoes were resistant to synthetic ingredients contained in common insecticides which he stated was not the case with pyrethrin, the natural pesticide found in pyrethrum.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the full potential of agriculture in terms of economic benefits is mainly hidden in the value-addition component of the production process.
Economists have singled out access to appropriate machinery as one of the major challenges facing Kenyan enterprises which is limiting most local business people to being export brokers of raw produce.
The World Bank has projected that by 2030, the size of the food and agribusiness industry in Africa will reach 1 trillion United States dollars’ worth. This will mainly have to do with value addition to the agriculture related produce coming from the farms.
By Esther Mwangi and Alvin Kamau