A tractor is busy cultivating an arable land in Molo just next to the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya research station. It is during this planting season that farmers take advantage of the research station to plant latest variety of flowers.
But like a majority of the farmers in this area, Mr John Kimani, the owner of farm being ploughed, is no longer interested in planting flowers. “I am preparing a potato (Irish potatoes) seedbed,” Mr Kimani told the Nation team at his farm.
Most of the other small holder farmers have replaced pyrethrum flowers for Irish potatoes, which they say are well paying, compared to the former. According to Mr Kimani there is likely to be good market for Irish potatoes in July and that is why he is busy preparing the seedbed to plant crop.
Molo is the leading producer of Irish potatoes in the country. Why not concentrate on pyrethrum farming? “It would be a waste of time and resources to cultivate flowers. And it would also mean going back to the old bad days,” the farmer answers back.
He is among other small holder growers in the area that were the first to abandon the internationally high demand crop to adopt new farming practices after years of hard labour while growing pyrethrum. The farmer’s sentiments are an indication that the country may never recapture the 80 per cent world market share it had enjoyed since independence.
