Vetiver feeds my pockets

Mr Omollo's cow grazes on vertiver grass grown along contours in his farm in Rongo, Homa-bay County on 01-07-2014.Photo/JACOB OWITI

What you need to know:

  • Omollo currently has over 1,000 vetiver crops. Each plant has between 50 and 65 shoots. The shoots, which he harvests regularly, retail at between Sh20 and Sh30 each. One crop fetches up to Sh1,300 per harvest.
  • Two years ago, he sold another batch to Kerio Valley Development Authority in Sigor, West Pokot at over Sh1 million following another landslide.
    He has also exported vetiver to Tanzania and Rwanda.

Standing on the edge of the sloping farm, Caleb Omollo points at a section teeming with maize.

“If you had come here six years ago, you would not have found such a healthy maize crop,” says Omollo as he walks along the five-acre farm in Rongo, Migori County.

Omollo attributes the good performance of his crop to a certain grass he has intercropped with the cereal, alongside Irish potatoes.

“This grass is called vetiver. It has helped me reclaim the land, whose soil had been washed away for many years, leading to loss of nutrients and fertility.”
Vetiver, scientifically known as chrysopon zizanioides, is a long grass with roots of about three feet deep. The grass normally forms a tight cover on the ground, thus helping to increase the soil’s ability to absorb water.

It also helps in fixing nitrogen in the soil.

“When planted along the contours. Vetiver sinks into the soil depositing organic matter. This makes the soil more fertile,” says Omollo, an ecology and urban planning expert.

The farmer started planting the grass in 2008 after returning from the US. “When I came back, I found my relatives had given up planting crops on the land because of soil erosion. Whenever they planted, rainwater would wash everything away,” he recounts.

Using his knowledge, and having seen vetiver being used in the US to reclaim land in his 34-year stay in the country, Omollo planted the grass first in contours he dug at different positions on the farm.

The grass had first been introduced in Kenya by the British in the 1930s and popularised in 1980s by the World Bank, but did not pick up.

“I sourced the grass from a farmer in Voi. When I came up with the plan, I went to several Kenya Agricultural Research Institute offices looking for it in vain. It is in Kisii where I was linked to a vetiver farmer at the Coast. I went there and bought grass worth Sh10,000.”

After getting the vetiver shoots, he planted them in a nursery on quarter acre of his farm and transferred them after six months on the contours of the five-acre land.

“As the grass grew, soil erosion stopped and the land became arable. The grass is planted 15cm apart on contour line to form what is called a hedge row. For nursery establishment, you plant it 75cm apart.”

A year later, after seeing the land was arable, he planted more vetiver on the entire farm, alongside maize and potatoes.

Omollo currently has over 1,000 vetiver crops. Each plant has between 50 and 65 shoots. The shoots, which he harvests regularly, retail at between Sh20 and Sh30 each. One crop fetches up to Sh1,300 per harvest.

Six months to mature

Vetiver normally grows and forms shoots that turn into bulbs, just like an onion.

The grass takes six months to mature. Upon maturity, it can be harvested for six consecutive months.

“When you intercrop vetiver with crops like maize, you will not even need fertiliser. I do not remember the last time I used fertiliser yet I harvest 30 bags of maize.” The maize crop only takes just over two acres of his land.

The farmer is sensitising fellow villagers on the importance of growing the grass.

“About 100 farmers are now growing vetiver. Some are intercropping while others are growing it as animal fodder,” says Omollo, who keeps two cows.

And he has set his eyes on the export market. For instance, in 2010 he sold two tonnes of vetiver at a cost of Sh500,000 to Mbale in Uganda following a heavy landslide which killed more than 80 people.

Two years ago, he sold another batch to Kerio Valley Development Authority in Sigor, West Pokot at over Sh1 million following another landslide.
He has also exported vetiver to Tanzania and Rwanda.

Solfar Gisaina, a former ministry of agriculture official now in private practice, says vetiver is rich in iron, which boosts milk shelf life.

“Both cows and goats feed on vetiver. Its uptake, however, is still low. Several studies have been carried out on vetiver and they show its capacity to improve an animal’s health.”