Written By Ramadhan Kambi 📝
It was an end of era for mangoes brokers and middlemen in Tana River County as farmers reaped millions of shillings from their mango businesses.
Thousands of mango farmers from the county for many years depended on the middle men who used to buy hundreds of thousands of mangoes produced in the county annually for a song.
But now that is a past story after the Coast Development Authority (CDA) constructed a Sh190 million Integrated Fruit Processing Plant at Boji near Hola with a capacity of crushing 1.5tonnes of mangoes per hour.
Famers led by the Vice chairman of the Galole Farmers Co-operative Society Mr Jillo Sale said the Coast Development Authority (CDA) funded mango processor has brought “a paradigm shift” in the mango growing sector by enabling them to sell mangoes in tonnes and get good prices for their produce.
“An individual farmer could harvest 10- 20 tonnes of mangoes and once delivered to the Hola Integrated Fruit Processing Plant, get good dividends for the produce delivered which has enabled us to improve our living standards and give quality education to our children ”, said Mr. Sale.
Another mango farmer, Mr. Hamesa Hassan Galole hailed the CDA for capacity-building farmers through training on harvesting and mitigating post-harvest losses which has really improved the quality of the produce.
Meagre Earnings
Speaking during a tour of the plant, CDA Managing Director Dr. Mohamed Keinan said the plant covers mango farmers from Tana River, Garissa, Lamu and Kiliffi Counties.
Dr. Keinan noted that Tana River alone produces 223,360 tonnes of mangoes annually which used to be bought by middle men and brokers for as little as 50 cents per piece before the construction of the processor at Boji by the Authority with Government funding.
“Tana River is one of the leading mango producers in Kenya. However these farmers used to incur post-harvest losses ranging from 20-40% due to improper treatment and handling from harvesting to the ultimate consumer or factory. They also incur losses due to inadequate facilities for post-harvest handling, transportation, storage and marketing which we have addressed through the construction of the plant”, the MD noted.
Following the operationalization of the processor, Keinan added, CDA will help farmers to add value to their produce using modern processing and packaging machinery besides processing the mangoes closer to the farmers.
“We have procured and installed modern machinery and equipment at the plant, completed the construction of auxiliary infrastructure, commenced buying of the mangoes from farmers in tonnes, processing the fruits throughout the year, and we purpose to employ 80% women and youth directly and another 1,500 indirectly besides training 3,000 farmers on good agricultural practices”, Dr. Keinan revealed.
The MD further said the integrated fruit processor at Boji near Hola will improve the production of quality fruits in the area, to enhance efficiency and quality of production through value addition of fruits, create and increase employment opportunities for the youth and women, provide market for fruit farmers besides enhancing the resource base for the CDA.
The MD revealed that the Integrated Fruit Processor in Hola which is also treating and packaging bottled water will also diversify and start crushing oranges, passion fruits, honey processing and pineapples during the mango off-season in order to operate at its optimum in order to improve the living standards of the Coastal small holder fruit farmer to enhance CDA’s revenue base.
“ At the Plant, we run a two tonne mango crushing machine which crushes 10 tonnes of mangoes per day, day and night besides running a water purifying line which targets the Coastal tourism industry which has a ready market for bottled water”, Dr. Keinan added.
The MD said the fruit processor is a big “cog in the wheel” of the Big Four Agenda as it was addressing crucial sectors of enhancing food security, industrialization, manufacturing through value addition for mango farmers and irrigation in other parts of the Coast region.
Top Notch Quality
Mr. Haro Garlos, a ood technologist at the processor said the management of the plant procures mangoes from farmers, does analysis before accepting, weighing, keeping for ripening and sorting where the ripening and size are determined before washing them in a chemical laden with chlorine and crushes them to pulp and packs the pulp and juice for processing.
The CDA Director for Business Development, Partnership and Collaboration Mr. Griffin Muthomi said the Authority trains 500 farmers per year on the principles of harvesting quality mangoes and accessing markets.
“ We have eliminated middlemen from the mango chain production by buying all the mangoes from the farmers and provided a ready market besides doing Memoranda of Understanding ( MOUs) with other farmers to mitigate post-harvest losses and employed hundreds of the locals in the plant” Muthomi told MyGov.
Mr. Muthomi added that CDA was also training mango farmers on the concept of planting mangoes in pest free areas in order to penetrate the European Union market of Italy, Germany and UK which are very particular with quality.
The Hola Integrated Fruit Processing Plant coordinator, Ms Cynthia Gathoni Mugo said that besides addressing post-harvest losses from mango farmers, the plant has employed 1,500 people directly and indirectly besides helping 30,000 people in the Coast region through value addition and increasing shelf life of mangoes.
“We are also marketing the by-products of the crushed mangoes to pharmaceutical companies and animal food processors”, said Ms Mugo .
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