Sunflower farmers in Likuyani, Kakamega County, have asked the government to complete the construction of a processing plant that would provide a market for their produce.
The farmers who spoke to KNA said they have grown the crop, which is almost ready for harvesting, and are afraid that they might incur losses if they fail to get to market.
One of the farmers, Vincent Lugalo, says he is expecting to harvest at least 600 kilograms of sunflower from his one acre of land in a month’s time.
Lugalo noted that he has been growing sunflowers specifically to use as fodder for his cattle but was excited when the government came up with the proposal to construct a processing plant.
He said the processing plant will provide a market for his sunflower and would enable him to increase acreage under the crop.
Another farmer, Oliver Simwa from Likuyani, noted that this is the first time for him to try out sunflower on his two and a half acres’ after the government promoted the crop with a promise to offer a market for the produce.
Simwa noted that his crop is almost ready but the factory is not yet up; however, he discloses that he will have to opt to sell the produce to another farmer who has a processing plant once he harvests to avoid losses.
“I was told that the government would come and formulate value chains. Just in case the crop is ready for harvesting and the factory is not ready, I have a farmer who has a machine where I would supply my harvest to avoid losses. But we are hoping that once the value chain is opened, we will go full throttle. This is about two and a half acres, which is a lot. I have to do something, but my main target was to provide for the factory to process sunflower into oil,” he noted.
The Government launched the construction of aggregate and industrial park at Likuyani at a cost of Sh. 500 Million to be cost shared between the National Government and County government of Kakamega.
President William Ruto said during the launch that the Industrial Park would have a Common User Facility that would help in agro-processing and value addition of farmers’ produce to enable them to earn extra cash from farming.
“We want to use this aggregation Centre to collect your produce to do value addition, agro-processing, and manufacturing so that farmers can realise increased earnings from their produce. The facility will also provide employment to over 1000 youth in the area, and we want to plan on how we will have exports of farmer’s products from this county,” he added.
To support cultivation of sunflowers, the County Government of Kakamega distributed 18,600 kilograms of Sunflower Seeds to 9,200 farmers in August in the Edible Oil Crops Promotion Project.
The devolved unit partnered with the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) in the exercise that is supposed to support cultivation of sunflowers on over 5000 acres of land in the county, with one acre receiving 3 kilograms of seeds.
Lugalo and Simwa from Likuyani are among those farmers who benefitted from the distribution of sunflower seeds.
The initiative, according to Kakamega Governor Fernandes Barasa, is expected to yield 6,440, 000 kilograms of sunflower seeds from the county after harvest in December, with the seeds being processed into at least 1 million litres of oil valued at over Sh. 200 million.
“Most of the produce will be processed at the upcoming County Aggregation and Industrial Park in Likuyani,” the governor noted during the sunflower seed distribution exercise.
According to the Kakamega Resource Mapping Report 2019, sunflower farmers in the county have been selling their produce to aggregators, individual buyers, or directly to small-scale processors.
“In the resource mapping survey, farmers indicated that they seek to get the sunflower to the buyers as soon as possible to mitigate against loss of quality or contamination with a kilogram of sunflower seeds selling for between Sh. 25 and Sh. 35,” states a report by Nicky Consultants Limited for Value Chain Analysis on Agricultural Investment Opportunities in Avocado, Sunflower, and Upland Rice in Kakamega County.
By Moses Wekesa
