Farmers in Kakamega have formed the first ever avocado cooperative society to promote the growth and marketing of Hass avocados. The Cooperative Society, known as Mumbo Farmers’ Cooperative Society, will mobilise farmers to produce enough avocados that will be sold in the lucrative export markets in the European Union, India, Saudi Arabia, China, and America. Currently, only a few farmers from Likuyani and Lugari in Kakamega produce the fruit for export through off-takers. The cooperative society has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sisi Village Produce, a social enterprise in Malava that produces clean avocado planting materials, to help in marketing avocados from farmers. Sisi Village Produce will also set up a Private Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Malava and an extraction plant. The Private EPZ, according to Sisi Village Produce Ambassador Elijah Karungani, will be used to add value to Hass avocados received from farmers that fail to meet export standards by crashing them to extract oil to enable farmers to earn from every fruit they produce. He said that once the EPZ is complete, Sisi Village Produce will also purchase other types of avocados from farmers, other than the Hass Avocado, instead of the fruits rotting away in farms, encouraging farmers to plant the fruits even if it’s on a small plot of land. Karungani noted that they will also distribute bee hives to farmers to integrate avocado farming and beekeeping so that they can earn from honey as they wait for avocado trees to mature and be ready for harvesting and to increase their income streams. The chairman of Mumbo Cooperative Society, Maxwell Shamala, urged farmers to intensify their efforts in farming avocado to benefit from the available opportunities. ‘We are encouraging our farmers to plant avocados, particularly the Hass varieties, which have a wide market all over the world, and the oil from the Hass avocados is needed in the world for use in the pharmaceutical industries and even in culinary areas,’ he disclosed. ‘We have not restricted farmers, like some may think that you have to plant over 100 trees, or so we encourage farmers to plant as few as 10 seedlings, but it is our prayer that farmers plant these varieties in large numbers; if they plant in large numbers, they will enhance the chances of this particular sub-county growing economically,’ he disclosed. Kakamega County government has allocated Sh10 million during the 2023-2024 financial year for avocado promotion and especially assisting farmers to access clean planting materials. The county government has so far distributed 12,000 avocado seedlings to farmers, with other partners distributing over 8,000 seedlings.
Source: Kenya News Agency