Makueni farmers reap from contract farming of sorghum

For many years, farmers in Makueni county have been growing pulses such as sorghum, pigeon peas, green gram, pearl and finger millet.

But the traditional varieties were not promising and they would suffer huge losses due to erratic rainfall, pests and diseases and other vagaries of climate change.

However, the trends are changing as farmers adopt drought tolerant and high yielding crops.

This is credited to the United States Agency for International Development/ Feed the Future funded Accelerated Value Chain Development-AVCD Program, through the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics-ICRISAT and Egerton University Seed Unit.

Bernard Towett, a senior researcher at Egerton University, said they have entered into a contractual agreement with farmers in Makueni county to produce sorghum seeds.

“We have introduced a sorghum variety known as Egerton University Sorghum 1- EUS1 which is high yielding, susceptible to pests and are not eaten by birds like the traditional varieties,” Towett said.  

He told journalists during a field visit in Makueni county on Thursday that harsh environment is a major factor in crop failure in the arid and semi-arid lands.

However, the unavailability of certified seeds for improved varieties that can withstand drought and are disease-resistant is a bigger problem to agricultural productivity in ASALs.

“The variety does well in semi-arid system and fits well in tropic systems where we have pigeon peas and green grams. They can be intercropped with other crops such as green grams,” he said.

Towett added that another characteristic of the sorghum variety is that is has a high nutritive value and can be fed to animals. It can be blended with wheat to make brown bread.

“We have contracted farmers to produce seeds. Breeding and seed production stared in Elgeyo Marakwet and we have also done it in Turkana, it is the only crop that can survive there.

"There is a lot of opportunity for growing sorghum in dry areas such as Makueni and Tharaka Nithi counties,” he said adding that their is huge demand for sorghum.  

Towett said a kilo of sorghum is going at Sh29 but Egerton will be buying seeds from farmers at Sh50. The varieties are high yielding and one can harvest up to 20 bags per acre.

Under the partnership, Egerton University commercially releases varieties bred by ICRISAT.

They also contract farmers through the Egerton University Seed Unit/Agrisoy Seed Company, the private wing of Egerton University

They further conduct backstopping on training and release of varieties.

The researcher said drought tolerant crops have been introduced through Feed the Future programme by the USAID, they target around 35,000 beneficiaries.

“AVCD drought tolerant crops component is working to promote these drought tolerant crops.

"They are proven to provide an assured harvest even in bad years when the rainy season is too short for other crops to reach maturity,” Towett said.

Wilson Lati, a sorghum farmer from Mulala Ward in Makueni said he started planting sorghum in 2018 through a contract agreement with EABL.

“After about two years, I gave up because the crop was being attacked by birds and shifted to growing the Egerton variety.

"I have always planted sorghum because I am diabetic and use it to make porridge,” the 70-year-old farmer said.

Lati said the crops are drought tolerant and early maturing, and once harvested, he uses the left overs for conservation agriculture.

“If you arrange well, it helps in soil erosion and you can easily intercrop with other legumes such as green grams and cow peas.

David Kitavi, chairman of the Mumua Waita farmers group from Itaa area in Makueni said about 15 farmers have embraced sorghum seed production.

“Besides earning good money from seed production, many of us who are elderly and others diabetic get sorghum flour to make porridge.

"We are healthy because of eating healthy food that does not contain any poison since we don’t use chemicals on the new crop,” he said.

Kitavi said before, the had ready market with breweries when they planted the Gadam variety but many of them stopped growing it because of pest and diseases.

“We have now shifted to the Egerton University Sorghum 1 variety and we are producing seeds and getting food.

"We also have a ready market with Egerton University who have assured us a good price of Sh50 per kilo,” he added.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)