Last week, a project funded by the World Bank and the Murang’a County Government through the National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIGP) led to the completion of an aggregation house to be used by farmers allied to Murang’a Avocado Farmers’ Cooperative Union.
This will allow avocado farmers to sort, wash and package fruits for international markets in the absence of brokers. Moreover, the farmers’ union has signed agreements with four exporters and found markets in Mexico, Dubai, China, and Egypt.
Despite Kenya already being the third largest producer of avocados globally, this will further increase the productivity of the 92,250 farmers in Murang’a significantly, with avocado exports capable of increasing the incomes of Kenyan smallholder avocado farmers by nearly 39%.
Despite issues with theft, there is a significant opportunity for growth in the avocado industry, driven by the empowerment of smallholders through unionization and development of facilities that allow direct transactions between farmers and consumers.
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Smallholder farmers produce 70% of Kenyan coffee, a specialty commodity in global coffee markets. Similar to Murang’a’s avocado industry, the coffee industry in Mathira, Nyeri has seen increased fortunes for farmers on the back of the establishment of a cooperative society, the Kenya Planters Co-operative Union in 2019.
In collaboration with Crowd Farm Africa, a natural coffee processing method has eliminated school fees woes for farmers in the area by providing high-quality coffee for export which requires less water and electricity while having a larger market “because it has more fruits and fermented flavors because the beans have more time to interact with the natural sugar from the cherry,” according to Job Kareithi, CEO of Tetu Coffee and a coffee farmer in Mathira.
Agriculture contributed 14.8% of Kenya’s GDP in Q3’2022. Simultaneously, 75% of Kenya’s agricultural output is represented by small-scale agricultural production.
Unlocking smallholder farmers through the development of cooperatives and processing methods that provide globally competitive produce while preventing value loss from middlemen could therefore be key to the growth and development of Kenya’s economy.
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