Cheap, healthy way to minting cash

At 27 and 70, Dennis Andaye and Michael Ruchu are unlikely team mates. Their bond lies in their common passion — preaching the organic food gospel.

Seeds of Gold found them at the Talisman Organic Market in Karen, Nairobi, where they are publicist-cum-market manager and vice-chairman, respectively.

Andaye abandoned journalism to pursue a two-year entrepreneurship course at the Hi-EYEQ institution in Johannesburg, South Africa, which he completed last year to take up his current job.

And Ruchu is a founder member of the market that has been in operation since March 2011 and serves a growing clientele for whom organic food is synonymous with health and vitality. Although he has no scientific evidence to link his autoimmune disease, myositis, to anything he ate, he has a nagging feeling that he is a victim of chemically adulterated food.

Andaye’s vegetables are grown on tiny patches of land around his home in Kabete to meet his subsistence needs, while Ruchu farms in Mang’u, Kiambu County and he is reaping big from sale of organic crops.

Ruchu did not say how much he earns from the Thursday market at the US embassy, which opened early this year to spare diplomatic staff the weekly drive to the Karen market. He grows sukumawiki (kale), spinach, terere (amaranth), managu, avocados, pawpaw, sweet potatoes and cabbages.

Ruchu’s weekly deliveries to the US embassy market are 20 pineapples, 15kg of nduma (arrowroots) and a similar quantity of sweet potatoes.

Becoming an organic farmer is not a walk in the park. You have to be certified as an organic farmer to use the Kilimohai trademark. And because the certificate has to be renewed yearly, concern is emerging that consumers could be eating inorganic food from farmers who have not renewed their certificates.

Nesvax Control Limited managing director Sylvester Gule — one of the two local organic certifiers — said that inspection fees range between Sh7,000 and Sh200,000, depending on what one is growing. The upper margin, he said, would usually relate to an enterprise grouping 300 to 500 farmers.

Musa Njoka of Encert — another certifying company — told Seeds of Gold that once farmers have acquired the initial certificate, they don’t bother to renew it.

“They just sell without the Kilimohai mark, or without any mark. If you go to any of the shops or supermarket where they say they are selling organic, you will not see anybody using any mark. They just say it is organic,” he said and added: “That is where the problem is.”

The Kilimohai mark is administered by the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (Koan), and according to Njoka, “you wouldn’t get it without being certified.”

As things stand now, “nobody can assure you (that you are buying organic) because people just wake up and say, ‘I’m organic’. They sell their produce as organic. They are not certified,” Njoka said, and blamed it on regulation.

At the Talisman market in Karen, where vendors proudly display their Kilimohai banners next to their produce, Ruchu complains about the policy gap that hampers the growth of organic farming.

“We want organic farming to be known and promoted by the government. It should be put in policy. I remember in 2012, we had a meeting in Nairobi, and the Ministry of Agriculture sent the PS. They told us they were going to develop a policy, which they have never done,” Ruchu said.

In an interview with Agriculture Principal Secretary Sicily Kariuki, she confirmed that the policy on organic agriculture is under preparation by the ministry together with other stakeholders and that the initiative to develop it started in 2010/2011 financial year.

The biggest problem about Kenya’s policy vacuum is that it hinders local farmers from entering the highly-lucrative export market. Njoka, who has been part of the efforts to create a policy on organic farming in Kenya, said the Koan-driven initiative, which endeavoured to rope in Agriculture ministry’s policy section, appears to have stalled — fears the PS’s response appears to forestall.

Even then, the policy vacuum has prevented growth of a potentially lucrative sector, as testified by University of Nairobi soil scientist Richard Onwonga.

Dr Onwonga told Seeds of Gold in a recent interview that use of chemical fertilisers and other inputs cannot be relied upon to feed a fast-growing population.

“We miss the point,” he said, and added: “Organic agriculture depends on five capital assets that are central to producing high-yielding crops and livestock,” and listed them as natural capital to include soils and water, social, physical, financial and human capital,” he said.

“What organic farmers believe in and are committed to is enhancing the natural capital particularly the soil. So feed the soil with right combination of organic inputs to in turn feed the crop,” he said.

Because of its labour-intensive nature, organic farming relies heavily on social capital. “Up to very recently in my rural area,” Onwonga reminisced, “I saw our parents work in groups — a sign of strong social cohesion. You would find a group of five, 10, or even 20 people and it used to take a very short time to carry out farm operations.”

Where labour shortages occurred, for example when people are ill or in times of hardship, the scientist saw social capital, one of the pillars of organic farming, as the way to sustain agricultural productivity even when the household head is incapacitated.

“If you get sick today,” he said, “It means your land is not going to be prepared; it will lie idle. But if it was those days, you will still be on your sick bed but your land will be prepared by other community members because of the social cohesiveness based on trust and collective action.”

Physical capital, he said, comes into play when farmers are always working as a group, and are, therefore, in a position to force counties to develop physical infrastructure (transport and communication) because of the dire need to access markets.

“Because they are producing and they have to market, the government and sub-counties will be forced to make roads,” the don said, adding that the value of what the farmers produce and their direct and indirect contribution to the economy has the potential to force infrastructure development.

He also talked of the financial capital involved in organic agriculture. “Organic farmers do not rely on chemical inputs in their production practices, so it means they save. The money they would have used to buy the chemical inputs is saved and can be put to other uses and with the premium prices organically produced foods fetch, whichever way you look at it is a win-win situation,” he added.

On human capital, the don said, “Organic farming leads to increased knowledge and skills; it challenges farmers to be innovative, experiment and find solutions to their own problems. It also leads to improved health and increased self-esteem among vulnerable and marginalised groups.

According to Onwonga, the first step to transition to organic farming is detoxifying the soil, which can be achieved in one to three years, and thereafter with the right mindset, focus and determination, farmers will start reaping the benefits.

So, why despite its many advantages, is Kenya’s organic agriculture lagging behind Uganda and Tanzania? Gule of Nesvax, who has been involved in certification work in the three countries, blames it on a stiff regulatory framework. “In Uganda, there is a lot of support from the government and there are universities that actually offer organic agriculture as a degree course —something that we don’t have here.”

He also reads politics in the under-development of the sector, noting that in the three countries, it was promoted by Sweden and Denmark in the 90s when the countries were not in Kenya’s good books.

Chemical fertilisers and inputs also mean big cash for the importers.