Retired teacher who spurred a green revolution in a sleepy, dusty village

Charles Mutika in Chuluni Horticultural Project processing plant in Kitui. KIHU IRIMU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Munyasia, who says the group has created a basis for community solidarity and spirit of self-reliance, urges the government to improve the road network to reduce wastage during harvest.
  • “We came out with local technology to squeeze juice out of lemons and mangoes and hit the local market since we had sensitised the community that it was the way they could enjoy the rich nutrients of the fruits when they were out of season.”
  • Their lemon, mango as well as passion and papaya juice and jam have since been endorsed by the Kenya Industrial and Research Development Institute and the Kenya Bureau of Standards.

The building at the far end of the stone-walled premises hosts fine-looking piles of freshly packed mango, passion and lemon juices in bottles of different sizes, shapes and colours.

Buyers jam the place, making it a lively spot in the middle of an otherwise quiet Chuluni trading centre in Kitui.

This is the handiwork of Charles Mutika, a former teacher whose innovative mind gave birth to Chuluni Horticultural Project (CHP) juice processing plant. The project is now the pride of Chuluni for raising income of residents and creating jobs.

Chuluni, a dry area in the expansive Nzambani sub-county, is located some eight kilometres west of Kitui town. Its inhabitants, somewhat complacent to the prevailing view that its dry sandy soils are uncultivable, now look at CHP’s success to realise how endowed the area is with soils most suited for lemon and mangoes.

RICH NUTRIENTS

During the high season, lemon and mango fruits had been flooding the market with prices plummeting, leaving families with losses and unable to tell if the evergreen tree remarkable for its mix of huge pinkish leaves and fragrance is a blessing or a curse.

“We came out with local technology to squeeze juice out of lemons and mangoes and hit the local market since we had sensitised the community that it was the way they could enjoy the rich nutrients of the fruits when they were out of season.”

In 2009, the group impressed the Ministry of Trade with exhibitions of how the community could benefit if a juice extracting plant was built. They then requested the World Bank to donate a juice extractor with capacity of processing two metric tonnes of fruits in a day.

Their lemon, mango as well as passion and papaya juice and jam have since been endorsed by the Kenya Industrial and Research Development Institute and the Kenya Bureau of Standards.

“But it is the lemon juice that has been the most sought product,” Mutika, the group executive chairman says, citing its medically acknowledged properties of boosting memory, blood circulation, detoxification, improving digestion, restoring appetite and producing pectin, an anti–haemorrhagic, also widely used in treating intestinal disorders.

Lemon juice, noted in medical journals as rich in vitamins A, B, A1 and B2, is also on demand by those fighting obesity and scurvy as well as those trying to quit drinking as it “reduces craving for alcohol”.

The project housed in simple rented premises at the deserted Chuluni market easily accessible by all-weather road, buys lemons and mangoes from its 54 registered members. We must “exhaust their harvest before buying from others,” says Mutika.

Each mango tree can yield up to Sh4,500 mangoes per year but when processed, the income rises to Sh12,000.

NEW VARIETIES

The group’s main outlets are hotels, families with social gatherings, hospitals and homes for the aged. Up to 40 youths earn a living by selling the products.

But the plant processes only a fraction of the 16,000 metric tonnes of mangoes produced in Chuluni and the larger Kitui, the leading mango producer in Kenya and home to the over 18 of the 22 world’s mango varieties, according to the All Africa Horticulture Conference Report of 2012.

It is Kitui that places Kenya as Africa’s top mango producer after South Africa, Nigeria and Burkina Faso. The world’s sweetest species – the Apple Mango, Van Dyake, Keitt, and Haden grow effortlessly in Kitui bushes, farms and roadsides.

“I want Kenya to see this advantage and use it to fight poverty,” Mutika says. Sammy Munyasia and Phyllis Wambua, members of the CHP, cannot agree more. They have survived on mangoes and educated their children up to university.

“Mangoes are our tea and coffee and we need improved varieties. If we can be helped to expand the plant, and include cooling and storage facilities, we can feed Ukambani and say goodbye to persistent hunger,” says Phyllis.

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Munyasia, who says the group has created a basis for community solidarity and spirit of self-reliance, urges the government to improve the road network to reduce wastage during harvest.

The self-help group is currently made up of men and women who own at least 50 mango and lemon trees. It recruits a few members every often, the minimum requirement being one’s activeness in commercial fruit farming.

The group has recently also opened its doors to those who can offer technical advice, giving a chance to food technology and entrepreneurship students.

The group is forging links with other fruit processing entrepreneurs in Nyeri and Murang’a, which are dealing with dry mangoes and has set its eyes on turning lemon into powder, which is on high demand from the perfume industry.