Pyrethrum losing its charm to humble potato

A tractor is busy cultivating an arable land in Molo just next to the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya research station. It is during this planting season that farmers take advantage of the research station to plant latest variety of flowers.

But like a majority of the farmers in this area, Mr John Kimani, the owner of farm being ploughed, is no longer interested in planting flowers. “I am preparing a potato (Irish potatoes) seedbed,” Mr Kimani told the Nation team at his farm.

Most of the other small holder farmers have pyrethrum flowers for Irish potatoes, which they say are well paying, compared to the former. According to Mr Kimani there is likely to be good market for Irish potatoes in July and that is why he is busy preparing the seedbed to plant crop.

Molo is the leading producer of Irish potatoes in the country. Why not concentrate on pyrethrum farming? “It would be a waste of time and resources to cultivate flowers. And it would also mean going back to the old bad days,” the farmer answers back.

He is among other small holder growers in the area that were the first to abandon the internationally high demand crop to adopt new farming practices after years of hard labour while growing pyrethrum. The farmer’s sentiments are an indication that the country may never recapture the 80 per cent world market share it had enjoyed since independence.

At the research station the situation is no different from what the local farmers are undergoing if the kind of activities going on at the more than 20 acre farm is anything to go by. What used to be pyrethrum seedbeds for propagating the flowers has now been neglected. And land is invaded by all kinds of weeds.

Food crops are also being grown by ‘willing’ farmers – most of who have been contracted to take charge of the remaining flower seedlings. Such farmers were given small plots some three years ago to do inter-cropping while tending to pyrethrum after more than 300 former local employees were either retrenched or retired.

They harvest and sell the little flowers produced at this centre to Pyrethrum Board of Kenya (PBK) factory in Nakuru. But most of them prefer growing food crops for their own consumption and some for commercial purposes.

According to a farmer, Ms Beatrice Kerema, production of pyrethrum flowers has been declining since 2001 and it is no longer a secret that PBK has lost both the regional and domestic market. This is due to diminishing production of the crop she blames on apathy among the grower and the board due to non-payment of their deliveries.

Pyrethrum farmers maintained that they have uprooted the crop and will not go back to it any time soon since its losses are still being realised in a big way. Ms Kerema recalls the good old days when she and her family used to solely depend on pyrethrum growing.

This was way back in the 1980s when she ventured into the sub sector because of its high returns. She joined local farmers at Ololongoi in Narok North district who had abandoned wheat farming to grow pyrethrum, which had higher returns.

But 20 years down the line, she can only grow Irish potatoes and vegetables which she says fetch more profits compared to pyrethrum. Pyrethrum she says is expensive to grow.

Irish potatoes

Ms Kerema does not only earn Sh300,000 from the sale of Irish potatoes per year but she gets additional Sh200,000 from her vegetables. Another Sh100,000 she says comes from the sale of sheep they keep in their 75 acre farm. And the farm according to her is under-used.

But as many farmers are wondering when the rain started beating them, an audit report prepared by Inspectorate of State Corporations gives a candid revelation of how pyrethrum industry collapsed in 2001/2002 financial year. It cites non-payment of flower deliveries to PBK which greatly affected the levels of stock of pyrethrum and its products. The report says that growing of pyrethrum in Kenya is lucrative if only farmers could be paid promptly.

Farmers said in an interview that pyrethrum growing areas in central and southern rift region had been hit by lack of enough stock to sustain the smooth running of a Sh400 million extraction plant that has been lying idle since it was built more than five years ago.

Although most of the 300,000 small growers, could not understand what may have led to the collapse of the sector, they continued to supply the dry flowers to Nakuru factory despite delayed payments. Months turned into years and by 2004, the accumulated farmer’s arrears stood at Sh1.3 billion but after a general appeal to government, Treasury released a Sh862 bailout package to the board.

But as the government was trying to salvage the State Corporation, another massive flower loss of stock valued at Sh2.7 billion was reported at PBK in 2005. “The Criminal Investigation Department was called to investigate the scandal but their findings were not submitted despite recommendations by audit report that the Ministry of Agriculture to collect the findings.

Mr Samuel Kiprono a farmer in Kamara area hinted that for more than three years the board was purely composed of government appointed officials and farmers had no voice at the Nakuru headquarters. “The board should move from being monolithic structure to an export oriented organisation,” he said.

The board led by the managing director, Dr Isaac Mulagoli, said PBK is targeting 600 farmers in pyrethrum growing areas to replant the crop immediately. During a tour of pyrethrum growing districts at the end of last year, Dr Mulagoli said the board had paid Sh5.5 million to farmers.

Start nurseries

He said the board had received another Sh5 million from the government to restart nurseries and another Sh12 million advance payment from world market traders for multiplication of seedlings in efforts to jump-start the sector.

A former PBK director, Mr Samwel Kihiu, accuses the Minister for Agriculture, Mr William Ruto, of giving farmers a row deal in the management of the ailing industry. He said the minister divided the growing areas into four zones; North rift with 18, central rift with 10, Eastern zone with 16, western zone with 9 administrative districts respectively. 

Mr Kihiu complained that the minister’s move is a scheme to throw them out of the sub-sector protesting that farmers must have more stakes in the industry.