Askar Kerubo, a mother of three, is a proud owner of a permanent house in Miriri village in Kisii county worth millions of shillings. A mud house was the dwelling of the family before the banana farmer put up the house envied by rural folks.
She initially struggled to put food on the table for the family, whose menu months on end comprised of cooked and ripened bananas. Raising fees to send her three children, currently in prestigious secondary schools, to school, was yet another challenge.
The cultural banana farming practice of producing the fruit for home consumption made life a nightmare as she could not meet the family demands.
The most she earned from the quarter piece of land where she practiced mixed farming was Sh24,000 every two months. But Kerubo, a member of Nyangororo Banana Processors Youth Group, who currently earns Sh244,000 annually, has since put the miseries behind her back after she discovered value addition methods to the fresh bananas.
“I knew bananas can only be cooked or eaten ripe. To earn income. I sold the produce to brokers. I did not know they made a kill out of my sweat,” said Kerubo.
She is among nearly 600 banana farmers in the county reaping the benefits of the group, which has since been transformed into Nyangororo Banana Processors Company Limited, that was formed in 2002 after Jared Osoro came up with the idea of adding value to the fruit.
“The group was turned into a company to give improved serviced and train the increasing number of the members on skills to grow high quality bananas,” says Kerubo, stressing: “The number has been increasing.
More farmers are turning to growing bananas after realising there is more money here as opposed to coffee and tea farming, which they are doing away with.” Before value addition, bananas weighing 30 kilogrammes earned a farmer Sh200.
But the company pays Sh600 for the same amount. The company buys at least 1,000 kilogrammes of bananas per day, at a unit price of Sh20. Annually, the farmers earn Sh7.2 million.
“It was a rip off. Middlemen and brokers took advantage of ignorant poverty stricken farmers,” says Kerubo who has since taken over as the chief executive officer of the company because of her passion and mobilisation skills to spread the banana message.
Bananas are collected at various points where farmers deliver them. The firm picks the produce to process at the factory premises based at the Kisii Kenya Industrial Research Development (KIRDI) branch, which supports the initiative.
Lydia Nyakwara, a businesswoman in the region says poor road network in Kisii to access the material interferes with the volume of bananas collected.
“Currently we are targeting central province where the population is high and makes business opportunities favourable,” explained Lydia during an exhibition mounted by innovators in Nairobi.
The bananas are added value to produce various items such as long shelf-life banana crisps, bread, biscuits, queen cakes, scones, yogurt and wine flavoured with strawberry, jam and juice.
The matoke crisps are branded as “Ritoke Crisps”. “The products are sold through the local supper market chains.