Mr Peter Chacha Mwita harvests kales at Kendege village, Kuria East Sub County.Farmers are reaping huge profits in horticulture after quitting tobacco farming
| Ian Byron | Nation Media GroupMigori
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Why Kuria farmers are ditching tobacco
When tobacco companies scaled down their operations in the Kuria region a few years ago, farmers lost interest in cash crop farming.
Many who depended on the cash crop for their livelihood ventured into maize and sweet potato farming.
For years, they grappled with low output and could hardly make enough to cover their families’ basic needs. But all that changed with the advent of horticultural farming in 2019.
Mr Benson Mwita, who resorted to cabbage farming, told the Nation that he has never looked back.
“This is the new craze among farmers who used to grow tobacco. Unlike the latter, cabbages take only months to mature and the profits are handsome,” Mr Mwita said at his farm in Kendege village, Kuria East sub-county.
The crops that many residents had deemed unsuitable for the area turned out to be lucrative after Arista Life Science, an international organisation dealing with crop research, came to the area in 2017.
Mr Peter Chacha Mwita harvests cucumbers from his farm at Kendege village, Kuria East Sub County.
“They gave us assorted seeds that we used as samples but the produce turned out to be good. That’s when several farmers ordered more input,” Mr Mwita explained.
Vegetable haven
Mr Peter Chacha, another farmer, has turned his 10 acres into a thriving vegetable haven.
Unlike Mr Mwita, who had been a tobacco farmer, Mr Chacha worked at the Delamere farm before he resigned to try his hand at agribusiness.
A farmer tends to his vegetable garden in Kendege village, Kuria East Sub County.
His land, near the Kendege Technical Training Institute, lies green with cabbages planted in neat rows.
A group of young people help Mr Mwita on the farm, relying on the adjacent Migori River to water his plants.
“Last season, I grew a variety of crops such as tree tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, onions, kales, watermelons, sunflowers and beetroot. This season, however, I have delved fully into cabbage and kale farming,” he said.
Mr Peter Chacha Mwita tends to his onion farm alongside a farmhand at Kendege village, Kuria East Sub County.
Mr Marwa said he approached area MP Marwa Kitayama to help him partner with Kendege Technical Training Institute, which made available the vast land for cultivation.
“With savings of Sh200,000, I approached our area MP, who helped me find more money. I rallied some youths and together we started this project,” he said.
Dry season
The venture, he said, has revolutionised his life, earning on average “between Sh7,000 and Sh10,000 from the farm just from vegetables”. He said prices shoot up in the dry season.”
He says that a 90kg bag of mature cucumber and georgettes fetched Sh9000 and he can harvest as many as 200 bags from his vast farm.
He supplies kales and cabbages to neighbouring schools and traders from as far away as Tanzania.
Students taking courses in agriculture at Kendege Technical also visit the farm for practical lessons.
“We are targeting youths who have passion for agribusiness and we are ready to offer extension services to them as long as they are willing to learn,” he said.
He participated in the Nairobi International Trade Fair in 2019, emerging second overall and putting Migori County in the limelight.
Women tend to their vegetables in Kuria, Migori County. Most farmers in Kuria have turned to vegetable farming after quitting tobacco farming citing low returns.
But the farmers are concerned about high costs of input and are banking on the government to regulate the prices.
“We would wish to venture into large-scale farming as we have huge parcels but the prices of inputs, especially fertiliser, are a major drawback that the government should look into,” he said.
