On a chilly Monday evening, Mr James Gakuru, a farmer from Othaya in Nyeri County, parades his macadamia nuts in the streets of Nyeri town waiting for a buyer.
He is one of the many farmers who are hawking their produce for a pittance. From the 600 kilos he harvested, he will fetch between Sh30 and Sh50 per kilo.
“The market is not good at all. We sell the nuts to anyone who cares to buy because we don’t have a choice,” he says.
He has watched the macadamia trade go from boom to bust in one short season.
In 2019, farmers in Nyeri, Meru and Embu sold a kilogramme of macadamia at over Sh200. Last year, they got between Sh160 and Sh200 per kilo. The buyer was a Chinese firm in Athi River, Machakos County.
Grasping middlemen
Mr Steve Mwangi, who sold his 1.5 tonnes of macadamia at a throw-away price, blames his woes on grasping middlemen.
“The middlemen discouraged the Chinese firm from dealing with us directly,” Mr Mwangi says, adding, the traders have appointed themselves agents of the Athi River-based company.
They buy the nuts at very low prices, then resell to the firm exorbitantly, making a killing in the process. Farmers who choose to sell directly to the Chinese company have their produce rejected, he claims.
“I tried taking my produce to the factory in Athi River but they rejected my nuts, advising me to sell it through the agents,” Mr Mwangi says.
Covid-19 lockdown
Once the hope for tea and coffee growers of an alternative source of income, macadamia farming has turned into a veritable nightmare. Prices have plummeted due to a global economic shutdown occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, with export markets in Europe, America and Asia locked down.
Mr Peter Muchemi from Kangaita in Tetu Constituency has been a macadamia farmer for 20 years, a venture he took up after retiring as an employee of the Kenya Farmers Association.
As the business boomed, he contracted 50 farmers to grow the crop. In what counted as his financial breakthrough, from 280 trees, he would harvest 4,000 kilos that would translate to Sh800,000 two years ago.
“I have faced minor challenges along the way but I overcame them easily because the demand and prices for macadamia nuts was constantly rising,” he said.
However, since March 2020, Mr Muchemi has been counting losses and slowly losing hope in this once-lucrative venture. He also blames lack of goodwill by both the national and county governments to support the sub-sector.
Jungle Nuts Chief Executive Officer Patrick Wainaina says factories stopped buying the nuts from farmers after they were unable to sell off their stocks from the previous year.
Meru Macadamia Farmers Association chairman Joshua Muriira says this is the worst season since 2015 when a kilo was selling for a mere Sh40.
Mr Muriira said the effects of the pandemic over the past one year have seen prices tumble from a high of Sh200 to Sh50 a kilo in Meru County.
This season, Mr Muriira harvested about 2,000 kilos and sold each at an average of Sh70 a kilo, earning Sh140,000 as opposed to 2019 when the same quantity earned him Sh400,000.
Appeal to Munya
Recently, the farmers appealed to Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya to carry out a survey on the sector and establish whether factories were genuine in their refusal to buy the nuts.
Farmers said they were worried that cartels that used to control the sector before 2015 had resurfaced and were taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to exploit them.
“Over the past three months, middlemen have been buying the nuts at very low prices.
“The Ministry of Agriculture should carry out a survey to establish where they are selling the produce because we are worried that someone could be taking advantage of the pandemic to rip farmers off,” said Mr Jackson Kariithi, a farmer in Tigania East. BY DAILY NATION