Many have lost jobs, business since miraa is the main cash crop

Isaiah Ntonja and three of his former colleagues sit in front of a wooden shelter at the far end of a miraa farm in Maua, Meru County.

They used to work on the farm, but now they only come to the shelter to spend the night after looking for casual jobs in the area.

Today, they had no luck, and so do not have any money to buy supper. Ntonja, 67, who worked on the farm for 14 years, was dismissed in June, along with most of the staff.

Their unemployment is a direct consequence of the United Kingdom’s ban on miraa, which came into effect on June 24.

The owner of the farm, former Igembe MP and assistant minister Joseph Muturia, had no option but to dismiss 20 of the 30 staff members after losing his main market.

“More than half of the miraa we sell was going to London. I had to lay off most of the workers when we were no longer able to send miraa to the UK. I feel very bad for my employees,” says Muturia.

LOYAL CONSUMERS

The miraa exporting community has been hard hit by the ban that rendered the lucrative European market inaccessible. Large Somali and Kenyan communities, especially in the Netherlands and the UK, have traditionally been loyal consumers of miraa exported from Kenya.

The Netherlands was used as a gateway for distributing miraa to other European countries where miraa was not officially allowed, so when Dutch politicians banned the leaves last year, it was the first blow for the Kenyan miraa industry.

The ban in the UK has brought the industry to its knees, according Dave Muthuri, the chairman of the Kenya Miraa Farmers and Traders Association (KMFTA).

“The implications are disastrous and wide-spread. We are starting to see severe effects of the ban gradually and within the next couple of months, many families will see their livelihoods taken away,” he says.

PAY SCHOOL FEES

After losing his job at Muturia’s farm, Ntonja no longer has a stable income. As a result, he cannot pay school fees for his 16-year old son, who attends a secondary school in Maua.

“My other four children have finished secondary school, but I am very afraid my last born will have to drop out. I have tried to borrow money from friends, but all of them have also lost their jobs. And even if I were to borrow, how would I ever be able to pay back the money?” he wonders.

Maua is situated in Igembe in eastern Meru, the hub of miraa farming in Kenya. Here, 75 per cent of the residents depend directly on the crop for survival, a recent survey shows. Ntonja says the ban has cast a depressing mood over the entire area.

“Many of us are going to bed hungry. We have never been used to that. It is like we are only surviving, not really living,” he adds.

Muturia, who has been in the miraa business since 1948, has never experienced a crisis like the current one. He says trade relations with the UK have historically been good, and calls on the British government to reconsider the ban.

ORPHANED STUDENTS

“We have been let down by the British . They have been our friends since independence, but now they have left us to suffer,” Mr Muturia says.

But it is not just individual farmers who have been affected. Burieruri Boys’ High School on the outskirts of Maua, which depended on miraa to provide scholarships for orphaned students, or to pay fees for students from poor families, is also affected.

The students would harvest the leaves in the compound, which were usually exported to the UK. When DN2 visited the school recently, it had nine students on scholarship. With the usual market gone, the principal, Mr Muyuri Mutuma, fears that the school might not be able to offer new scholarships.

“If we sell our miraa on the local market only, we will not get enough money to be able to support the students on scholarship.  Naturally, we are concerned about the future of these students,” he said.

The school has 708 students, more than 90 per cent of whose parents are involved in the miraa industry in one way or another. This has Mr Mutuma is worried that the number of dropouts will increase.

“When January comes around and the parents are supposed to pay school fees, there is a huge possibility that many of them will not to be able to afford it,” he said.

SOMALI MARKETS

Most miraa farmers in the area expect to sell their harvest during the dry season, which begins in January. Even though many of the small-scale farmers target the local markets or Somalia, they will be affected by the bans in Europe.

The larger farms, which were exporting the bulk of their harvest to Europe, will now push their products into the local market or try to sell it to the Somalia, which is likely to force prices downwards.

According to the KMFTA, prices are already declining. For instance, a bundle that used to bring in Sh4,000 in Mogadishu now earns only Sh900 due to increased competition.

It is estimated that 80 per cent of the population of Meru relies on the miraa industry. It is, therefore, not surprising that local officials are unhappy with the UK ban, which classifies miraa as an illegal class C drug.

The ban is sure to affect all sectors of the county’s economy, fears the county’s Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Executive, Prof Kaburu M’Ribu.

“This is a big blow to Meru. It is discouraging to the entire county because we have relied on miraa for generations. We fear that this will have a ripple effect on our society,” he says.

RENDERED JOBLESS

When farmers realise that the market is much smaller than usual, they will have to reduce the prices and not receive the expected income.

Prof Kaburu fears that the decline in income will result in sick people not being able to pay for treatment, parents being unable to afford school fees and restaurants no longer attracting customers.

“It is very problematic and there is no immediate option for solving the crisis,” he lamented.

Apart from Meru and neighbouring miraa-producing counties, the European bans have rendered thousands of people across the country who were involved in the industry jobless.

These include the staff who packed the miraa for transport, the drivers of the high-loaded pick-ups that sped their way from Meru to Nairobi to deliver the leaves to the airport, as well as those who were doing the necessary export paperwork.

Even the middlemen who linked local producers with British importers are now jobless. “This is not just a Meru crisis. The entire economy will soon feel the pressure. It will affect the local farmers as well as traders in Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru. It will become a socio-economic disaster,” Muthuri warned.

NOT EASY
Kenya’s miraa exports to London were estimated to be worth around Sh1 billion annually, and accounted for 15 per cent of the entire miraa production.

With the European market out of reach, some farmers have started looking for alternative sources of income. Muturia, for instance, hopes to find new markets for his crop.

“I want to make up for the losses by selling my miraa to China, India and other emerging economies,” he says. But getting new markets is not going to be easy.

The Middle East produces most of its miraa locally, and outside Europe it is hard to find countries with large, miraa-chewing populations. Besides, miraa is considered an illegal drug in the US, Canada and Australia.

Since the miraa market is now too small for the large number of farmers, it has been suggested that farmers turn to alternative crops. And with most miraa farms located in very dry areas, they have been advised to consider raid-fed agriculture or livestock keeping as possible alternatives.

ALTERNATIVE CROPS
“We want to promote greenhouse farming since it does not require large amounts of water. Potatoes, sweet potatoes and macadamia nuts can also do well in this environment,” said Meru County Agriculture Executive, Prof M’Ribu.

Since the ban, government officials have been meeting with the miraa farmers regularly to discuss the latest developments and the possibility of growing alternative crops.

“It is not always easy to convince the farmers that it might be a good idea to plant alternative crops. We have to remember that many of them have relied on miraa farming all their lives, as did their forefathers,” said Prof M’ribu.

Government officials and representatives from the miraa growing areas are still lobbying for the UK to revoke its ban. The KMFTA has aslo sent a legal team to London to monitor the situation and seek ways of challenging the ban.

The team has also held discussions with the British opposition Labour party and hopes that the ban will be lifted in case of a change of government. The association will now move to the European Court of Justice to challenge the UK ban.

“What the UK has done is inhuman to the people of Kenya. They have violated the right of the consumers. The people consuming miraa in the UK are not criminals. We will continue to fight until the ban is lifted,” Muthuri said.

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More crops face possible ban

Kenya's horticultural farmers risk losing important export licences after several samples of their produce failed to meet the standards set by the European Union.

The government and producers have been given until the end of September to meet the requirements. This means that produce should not contain more than two per cent chemicals.

If Kenya is fails to live up to the standards, many horticultural farmers will lose their licences to sell produce in the EU.

Greenland Horticulture in Timau, Meru, is nervously awaiting the outcome of the EU ruling. The farm sells runner beans, snow peas and sugar snaps worth more than Sh40 million to the European market.

Losing its export licence would be disastrous for the company. “It would mean we would have to fire all our 200 employees. The company would go bankrupt,” said assistant farm manager, Harrison Gitau.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei has assured farmers that the government will take the necessary steps to avoid restrictions. But Gitau remains unconvinced before he hears that the EU has withdrawn the restrictions.

“We also thought the government would prevent the miraa ban from taking affect. That ban has made us even more nervous. If it can happen to miraa, why not horticulture?” Gitau asks.

Small local farms, in particular, have been accused of overusing fertilizer and pesticides. If the restrictions come into effect, they will do serious damage to horticulture-producing counties like Meru, Embu and Nyandarua.

“If further restrictions are imposed on horticultural exports, it will be a very serious issue. Thousands of jobs could be lost. Of course, local farmers are worried, but I believe we will take the right measures to prevent the ban,” said Prof Kaburu M’Ribu, the agriculture, livestock and fisheries executive in Meru County.