'Asembo Piny Maber’: Osito Kalle's dream of sweet mangoes comes true in Siaya

It is the veteran Luo benga maestro 'Dr' Osito Kalle who popularised the mangoes of Asembo through his famous hit, 'Asembo piny maber'.

The title of the song released at the close of the last millennium loosely translates to Asembo, the good place. That's part of Rarieda, Siaya county.

The song is in praise of a curvy woman named Nyar Yimbo, but Osito Kalle's ever-green composition paints the picture of a self-sufficient neighbourhood.

It is a locality booming with the abundance of sweet mangoes, Nile perch and nostalgic adventurous sails in the waters of Lake Victoria. 

But a tour by the Star found a dismal story. A part from the few shrunken mangoes hawked by the roadside in Ndori, Akala, Ramba, Nyilima, Kamito and Lwak towns, there have been no mangoes worth Osito’s publicity.

Granted, though, nearly every home in Asembo has a huge mango tree. But some are barren.

“Osito did not lie about our capacity to produce mangoes. Lately, the trees are infested by pests and diseases; and that is a setback,” Kenneth Mito, 39, a resident of Kitambo village, told the Star on November 25.

With its hot weather, sandy and clay soils, Asembo is not ideal for the growth of other crops but mangoes do so well.

Now, some 150 farmers in Ramba have teamed up with an investor to revive and promote modern mango farming, add value to the crop and market the product.

In a public private partnership with Kenyan, American and Indian partners, Ramba Food Producers and Marketers Cooperative Society  and E&A Industries are out to provide a solution.

“We promote good husbandry in the farm, buy from the farmer then sell it to the investor (E&A Industries) who process and market the final product,” RFPMCS secretary Newton Obado said.

Before the fruit processing could steadily begin in September, Alice Ouko, a mango farmer in Ramba, recalls that brokers would shake their trees for mangoes or sell them at the nearby Ndori market at throwaway prices. 

“Brokers from Kisumu would come and literally shake off every fruit from the trees in our homes. The only alternative was to hawk them in Ndori. Some would rot in the process,” Ouko said. 

According to the farmer, the fruit processing plant is a solution to their lifelong problem. 

A farmer’s only duty is to take a sample of the fruit to the factory, get approval then deliver. Payment of Sh15 per kilo is then done immediately or after a week.

“With the coming of the factory, we have also been taught how to produce a blend of the traditional and exotic varieties through top-working,” Ouko said.

Top-working is the process of cutting the stem of a traditional mango and grafting it with the scion of an exotic breed. 

Ouko explained that through this process, one tree can produce even three different mango varieties. 

Obado said the company is already confining itself to the Ngowe mango variety in order to achieve consistency in taste for the juice produced in Siaya county.

“For consistency of the taste of mangoes, we are insisting on the Ngowe variety. It is bigger, disease resistant and gives more returns to the farmer,” he noted. 

The deliberate effort at up-working the plants is to, in the long term, create a unique taste that the company can be identified with.

The society secretary told the Star that due to climate change and pests and diseases, Asembo has not had serious mango production for the last four to five years.

“There are no mangoes in Asembo because of climate change, pests and diseases. We have done market survey. They flower and drops off. Sometimes there is a lot of water due to excess rain and the burst.” 

He believes that through spraying, installation of pheromone traps to kill fruit flies and variety improvement, Asembo will spring to its former glory of quality mangoes.  

Many people are accustomed to their trees not being sprayed and it sounds strange when you tell them to do so, Obado said.

“There is a time we bought rotten mangoes worth Ksh16,000. They had not been sprayed and it was a total loss”.

Despite Siaya county as a whole having the potential to grow five mango varieties, production is currently very low and the RFPMCS has had to import fruits from as far as Elgeyo Marakwet to continue with production. Mango production in Siaya county peaks in February, July and August.

Obado said that Elgeyo Marakwet has since opened their own processing plant and so a challenge in supply.

Siaya governor James Orengo on November 11 commissioned the factory and expressed his support for it.

“I thank E&A and the cooperative society for what they have started in Asembo. Siaya has been known for politics but now we have a product of Siaya,” said.

Orengo underscored that Siaya has not had a cash crop and that the plant is a game changer to local farming through its value addition role. 

Obado urged elected leaders to further support mango farming through public education to change mindsets.

“This company is here but some locals still think that it is someone’s home. Elected leaders and the county government should lead the society into embracing it.”

He called on Orengo’s administration to help in the purchase and distribution of seedlings of the required mango variety, buy pheromone traps, support agricultural extension services and drill of a borehole.

Obado recounted that in the past mangoes were used to educate many children from Asembo and that reviving its production will alleviate locals from poverty.

He noted that, together with the Agricultural Sector Development Support Programme, the cooperative society is encouraging Class Four pupils to adopt the planting of at least 2 mango trees.

This, he explained, will be able to educate those very children after about 5 years. A huge mango tree can produce up to 300 kilos.

The cooperative society stated that they will soon review the prices to increase buying price per kilo from Ksh15 to 18.

The company prefers buying grade four but, Obado pointed out that farmers who already have fruits to supply are forced to dump even their grade ones with them.

This though, he thinks, is a better option because local farmers have had no meaningful place to sell their mangoes after all during peak seasons.

The company has also started the processing of guava, passion, avocado, pineapple, watermelon, tomatoes and citrus. Mangoes and passion have already reached the market; as far as Kisumu and Nairobi, Obado said.

The idea of the processing plant was birthed in 2013 when the national government constructed the infrastructure at a cost of Ksh14 million before handing it over to the cooperative society.

In 2019, a grant from the USAID to the tune of Ksh19.5 million was pumped in to import processing machines from India.