Avocado farmers form cooperative to boost marketing of crop.
Avocado farmers in Kisii County have formed a cooperative society to promote production and marketing of the fruit.
The cooperative with membership drawn from all 45 wards in the county will coordinate production activities and standardize prices paid out to farmers.
Speaking during an inspection tour of the newly established Sh 300 million avocado processing factory in Kisii Town, Governor James Ongwae his government was working towards streamlining marketing of the fruit to benefit farmers.
“Kisii is one of the largest producers of the avocado fruit in the country. Most of the fruit is normally consumed at home or sold to traders in an informal system whereby brokers dominate the market. This leads to exploitation of the farmers especially during the peak production period and this is what we hope to address through the cooperative,” said Ongwae.
The avocado factory run by Australian firm Old Land Trade Company started operations two months ago and processes 80 tonnes daily. The firm has employed 55 workers and farmers deliver the crop at Sh 5 per kilo with the oil produced sold to the cosmetic industry in South America.
“Most of the fruit delivered here is from indigenous trees and has a low oil content of 3 per cent hence the low prices paid to farmers. We have introduced the Hass variety of avocado which has up to 13 per cent oil content thus can fetch better prices,” said Agriculture County Executive Vincent Sagwe.
Ongwae said his government was working on a bill to regulate the marketing of the avocado fruit and it will soon be presented to the county assembly adding that this year’s finance bill has proposed measures to curb exploitation of avocado farmers by middlemen.
“The launch of this processing plant is the first step of our journey to industrial development and investment for this county. These investors have the technology that will process many products from avocado both for the local and export market,” said Ongwae.
The county Government in collaboration with stakeholders is promoting the establishment of fruit tree nurseries to enhance production of the required varieties and numbers targeting 1.5 million seedlings within one year.
According to the Horticultural Crops Development Authority (HCDA)’s statistics in 2012, Kisii County was ranked second Nationally as the largest avocado producer in both volume and value after Nyamira County with 41,927 metric tonnes worth KShs. 1,467billion.
Sidney based Old Land Trade Company’s director Levent Alkan and his counterpart from Turkey Akhoon Majid was present at the ceremony.
