An employee of Twiga Foods company sorts and grades bananas at a collection point.

 

Flesia Wambui Kinyua, a banana farmer in Mukinduri of Kirinyaga County, has won several awards for her dedication to small scale banana farming.

The 59 years’ mother of two ventured into banana farming in the year 2010. Earlier on, she was growing tomatoes and cabbages till she came to realise bananas were more profitable because of fewer production costs.

She says she is not quitting soon, having seen the benefits. Her banana cash foots all her bills “I attended several exhibitions and Agricultural Society of Kenya’s shows and was attracted to the bananas being exhibited. I immediately made up my mind and started growing them,” she reveals.

She started with 100 plants which she bought from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Aberdares Technologies.

Later, she shared tissue culture banana farming ideas with several other farmers in her village. This formed a bond that would lead to a cooperative known as Karinga Tissue Culture Banana Growers Group that she now chairs.

The group has since grown and has sixty active members who sell their produce every week through their umbrella organization Kirinyaga Banana Growers Association.

“Our buyers come from Nairobi. This season, we are selling our produce to Twiga Foods.”

She says all the farmers bring their banana together and sell as a group though the money is credited to individual farmers according to the weight of their produce.

“The buyer does not give us cash money but credits it to the bank where individual farmers use the payroll to get the money from their bank accounts,” she said.

“For one to qualify to register in our association, they must own at least 700 banana stems,” she said.

She says the association has been instrumental in getting the market for their products unlike before when middlemen took advantage of them. “This time we sign a contract with the buyer.”

Currently, the group sells their bananas at Sh20 per kilo and with an average of 30 kilos per the stock, farmers are able to get Sh600 on average.

She grows Grand 9, FIA 17 and Williams banana varieties that are high in demand and do well in the area.

Her 18 months of waiting for the bananas to mature and be ready for harvest were worth it as most of her bananas weighed at least 60 Kgs and above in the first harvest, she says.

“I was impressed and increased the number of the stem to the current 1,200 in my two acres of land. I intend to add three more acres for banana farming,” she adds.

In September 2014, some officials from the Ministry of Agriculture visited her farm and told her that they were judging farms for consideration to exhibit at the ASK show. Her farm emerged the best not only in her sub-county but also in the country, where she won the small-scale farmer presidential award. Wambui uses a square banana farming technique where stools are grown in square pieces, growing them in the spacing of nine by nine feet.

“This spacing ensures your bananas get enough light triggering a quality harvest. Space is not only the factor to be considered, but we also apply 40 kilos of compost manure per stem annually,” she says, adding that during sunny days, they also water 40 liters per stem on a weekly basis.


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