Kerio Valley has for a long time been known for the wrong reasons – insecurity.
Most Kenyans know the region as full of bandits that roam around, terrorizing locals and driving away their cows.
There are however many positives for this region which has a huge potential, agriculturally, one being mango farming.
A good proportion of the Kerio Valley is under mango farming – and with most of the locals already practising it, the government in 2021 opened a multi-million factory in the area.
The Ksh40 million factory, constructed by the Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA) was meant to kill two birds with one stone – address insecurity and enable farmers to do value addition to their mangoes.
To ensure farmers have the right quality of mangoes that will guarantee them returns, KVDA Chief Executive Officer Sammy Naporos says they have set up nurseries that provide seedlings to the locals.
“We have multiple fruits nurseries that are about 870,000. The nurseries are in different places among them Kimwarer, Arror, Tot, Wei Wei and Sigor,” says Naporos.
The seedlings farmers are given under this program are grafted – mostly apple mango and ngowe – the two are early maturing and have good quality and quantity of the fruits.
Currently, KVDA is supporting at least 700 farmers who sell mangoes directly to the Mango Factory.
The factory has the capacity to produce up to 4.16 million litres of mango juice and handle 35,000 tons of mangoes annually.
Availability of raw materials, which are mangoes, is usually a challenge at some point, but the KVDA boss says they have devised a practice where during peak season, the mangoes are crashed as much as possible them then stored in that when there is a drop in supply, they are processed into juice.
“We want a situation where we have a supply throughout and with mango needing water, those with irrigation are likely to harvest all year,” says Naporos.
Setting up the Mango factory has also helped stabilize prices. Before the factory, a kilogram of mango would retail at as low as Ksh5, but KVDA has set the minimum price of Ksh15, irrespective of the season.
The Mango factory is one of the projects KVDA hopes can be used as a catalyze for peace in Kerio Vally, as it benefits farmers from across the belt, from West Pokot to Baringo and Elgeyo Marakwet.
