About 50km North of Mandera lies Rhamu town, known more for its searing heat, huge flocks of livestock and occasional skirmishes between the majority Garre and the minority Degodia Somali subclans over political competition.
But Rhamu is not all about livestock, pasture and clan flare-ups, it is also about River Daua, a flowing source of livelihood that originates from the Ethiopian Highlands and courses its way across some of the richest farmlands in Northern Kenya. It is the physical boundary between Kenya and Ethiopia in most of Mandera county.
In the heat soaked area around Rhamu and neighbouring villages, pastoralists-cum-farmers have ventured into all manner of crop farming by irrigation. Among these is sunflower that has sparked a revolution of sorts against conventional crops by its sheer lucrativeness.
Mohamed Adan, a father of 10, has abandoned virtually all the other crops to concentrate on sunflower farming. He intercrops it with a strain of creeping cowpeas that not only enrich the soil with nitrogen but also cover the ground thereby protecting it against the heat in the area.
“The foliar laden peas help preserve moisture while providing protein-rich fodder for the livestock,” Adan says.
Adan, a member of Gumri farmers Group, started with a quarter of an acre of the crop, harvesting as much as 450kg.
“I look forward to increasing my acreage under sunflower because of its resilience and profitability. Sunflower oil is on high demand for its perceived medicinal value,” he adds.
To add value to the crop, Adan and other sunflower farmers in Rhamu area press oil from the seeds, which they sell at Sh450 per kg.
“People come looking for the oil. We do not go looking for the market,” he says, adding that nothing goes to waste from sunflower because husks are mixed with other fodder and fed to livestock.
Adan says the plant is ready for harvesting when the heads start turning brown after blooming.
“The head is cut from the plant about three inches from the flower and dried in the sun before threshing to remove the seeds, which are further dried to the right moisture content,” he explains.
He says they produce virgin oil because nothing is added. “About five kilograms of seeds is enough to produce one litre of oil,”Adan says.
Mandera Agriculture executive Johora Mohamed Abdi says more farmers in irrigation schemes along the Daua River are taking up oil crop farming because of the ready market.
“Sunflower and simsim are fast replacing traditional crops such as maize and sorghum because they spin money fast thereby enabling farmers to meet their obligations such as school fees,” Abdi says.
“Rhamu is among the areas within Mandera with the right temperatures and soils for sunflower that thrives best in slightly acidic soils. It is only a matter of time before increased production warrants the putting up of an oil milling factory within the County to ensure quality,” she says.
