NAIROBI: It was known for many years in Kenya as a business for the poor in rural areas and the rich who own huge tracts of land.
The poor were engaging in it for subsistence, while the rich to use their huge parcels and make money, particularly from exports. However, all these perceptions are now changing as many Kenyans, particularly, the middle class embrace farming. Farming has become one of the “coolest” businesses to engage in as market for produce expands and more people see the benefits of agribusiness.
From keeping livestock that include poultry and dairy cows and goats to growing fast-maturing horticultural crops like tomatoes and capsicum, farming is now the in-thing in Kenya. And a good number of Kenyans, including the youth, are living off the trade reducing the reliance on white collar jobs.
“There is good money in farming, particularly if you diversify by growing crops and keeping livestock,” Beatrice Kipsang, who is based in Uasin Gishu, said on Wednesday.
Kipsang grows various crops, among them maize, beans, bananas, wheat, cabbages, spinach, lettuce, green grams, tomatoes and various kinds of traditional vegetables. The farmer also keeps 20 cows and 30 sheep on her over 15 acres.
” Maize and wheat occupy more than half of my 15 acres and the other ventures the rest although not on equal portions. For instance, tomatoes and cabbages occupy slightly over a quarter an acre each,” she said. Farming is all the 47-year-old does as she juggles between animals and crops.
“I get 210 litres of milk from my 14 lactating cows every day which I sell to a processor at 0.39 U.S. dollars a litre. I sell to them 200 litres and the rest I use at home,” she said.
