By NJIRAINI MUCHIRA

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In the tropical highlands of Molo, in Kenya’s Nakuru County, 72-year-old Joseph Segei looks at a sack of pyrethrum with little enthusiasm.

As a Pyrethrum Processing Company of Kenya-contracted farmer, Segei is waiting for the company to collect the cash crop that he has planted, nurtured, harvested, dried and packaged in a 30kg bag and from which he expects to make only $30.

His lack of enthusiasm is compounded by the fact that even after the PPC collects the crop, he has no idea when he will be paid, if ever.

“Pyrethrum no longer brings in money. I plant it for sentimental value,” he told The EastAfrican.

Adjacent to Segei’s 11-acre piece of land in which only half an acre is under pyrethrum, 28-year-old Julius Sang is spraying his potato crop.

“I do not intend to ever plant pyrethrum,” Mr Sang said, citing the frustrations endured by his father for years for his avoiding the cashcrop like the plague.

Segei and Sang represent half the gloomy face of Kenya’s pyrethrum sector. The two project the suffering endured by thousands of pyrethrum farmers across the country following the collapse of a cash crop that was once among its leading foreign-exchange earners and a source of livelihood for millions.

The other half is represented by PPC, the state corporation that bears the responsibility of engineering the tragic demise of the sector during the days of its predecessor Pyrethrum Board of Kenya.

Challenges

PPC has done little to move on from its tainted past, which was characterised by mismanagement, poor leadership and corruption.

“We are not proud of our past, but we are trying to bring the bloom back to pyrethrum,” said Paul Lolwerkoi, PPC managing director.

However, the reality on the ground paints a picture of a corporation that seems to have given up on the crop largely due to financial constraints and apathy from farmers.

Although the company was allocated $3 million in the current financial year, the fact that the funds are disbursed on a quarterly basis has put a major strain on its operations including paying farmers and salaries.

The meagre allocation, coupled by the fact that PPC generates only $2 million from selling pyrethrin and a few animal and human health products annually, has resulted in the parastatal being financially crippled.

Worse still, of the $2 million it generates, about 80 per cent goes into expenses, a huge portion on maintaining its ageing plant.

This reality is evident at PPC’s facilities like the pyrethrum propagation centre in Molo.

The centre, a 35-acre piece of land that was once the pinnacle of irrigation-based pyrethrum farming, drying and research, is lying idle with weeds taking over instead of the white, yellow and green crop that covered the land in years gone by.

Most of the equipment, like the solar and firewood driers and diesel engine used to dry the crop are rusting away because it is no longer in use. There is little effort at maintenance while offices and research facilities are locked.

Glory days

In contrast to the current state of the pyrethrum sector in Kenya, where total production across the 18 counties that produce the crop stands at a mere 350 tonnes annually, the situation was different during its glory days.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Kenya was the epicentre of the world’s pyrethrum sector.

Being a cash crop that is always in high demand because of its use in the production of natural insecticides and pesticides while its byproduct, pyrethrin, is used in the manufacture of medical and personal care products, Kenya was the world’s leading producer.

The country used to produce 18,000 tonnes or over 80 per cent of world demand and earned $200 million in forex annually. Today, Kenya produces a paltry two per cent of world demand.

In its heyday, some 200,000 farmers directly earned a living from the crop, which also indirectly supported about four million people. Today only 7,000 farmers cultivate the crop, earning an insignificant $147,000 annually.

“The pyrethrum sector was destroyed after PBK was turned into a cash cow and stopped paying farmers on time and at a fair price,” said Justus Monda, Pyrethrum Growers Association of Kenya chairman.

The demise was both systematic and unavoidable. With PBK being a conduit for politically connected individuals out to loot, farmers suffered.

Apart from delays in payment, PBK was unable to supply farmers with critical farm inputs particularly seedlings. Farmers gradually abandoned the crop in favour of maize, potatoes, horticulture and dairy farming.

Other factors that contributed to the death of the sector were Kenya’s opening up the pesticides and insecticides market to synthetics, allowing India and China to flood the market with generics.

The imposing PPC factory in Nakuru is a relic that runs on old, inefficient technology.

The factory, which is the biggest in Africa, has a capacity to crush 25 tonnes per day and also boasts of a 600-tonne holding tank. During its heyday, it was a beehive of activity, with the machines running daily.

Today, the machines are often silent and are only switched on every three months if the company manages to accumulate enough dry pyrethrum stocks.

PPC has to accumulate at least 100 tonnes to crush, a process that takes a minimum of three months due to low levels of supply by farmers.