Meru County government has moved to scale up banana crop production and trade, in a bid to boost profits for farmers in the County.
Officials from Meru County recently visited Kisii County to benchmark on the crop’s value addition, to ensure farmers stop losing to middlemen who purchase the crop directly from the farms at a throwaway price.
Led by the Chief Officer Cooperative Catherine Kithinji, the officials said the move was deliberate to learn how to make baby foods, fertiliser and meals for persons living with HIV/Aids and stomach ulcers.
Kithinji cited other value-added products including baking and porridge flour, wine, crisps, sanitary pads and fiber for hair extensions, saying they would enable farmers to get higher profits and motivate them to indulge in more farming of the crop.
She said the two counties were in a mutual relationship and occasionally learnt best farming practices from each other, adding that Kisii County had also visited Meru earlier to learn how to get high yields from the crop.
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According to Eng Edward Karani, the Director in charge of Infrastructure Development and technical transfer under Micro and small Enterprises Authority, farmers in the two counties incurred losses after selling their crop between Ksh.200 and Ksh.300 per stock, which is later sold at Ksh.600 or Ksh.00 in major towns like Nairobi and Mombasa.
The Authority is under the Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development.
Karani said the two counties were moving in the right direction to ensure farmers in the whole of East Africa got value for their crop in the global market.
The County Chief Officer Trade Martin Gitije stressed the need to produce products according to the set standards to guarantee competitive prices in the global market.
They visited Kenyuni Women Group and Nyangorora banana processors in Nyaribari Chache Constituency and a banana cooler plant under construction at Kiamokama ward in Nyaribari Masaba.
Kisii County Chief Officer Trade Mengo Onchwangi called for more of such exchange programs between all counties, saying it was the only avenue to access outside markets for agricultural products, as it was not possible to get markets within their own counties.
