This archive report was first published on 3 July 2020.
Strawberry farming has become a lucrative business for many farmers in Kenya, and one couple from Nyandarua County is a perfect example of how this venture can change lives.
Beth Wairimu and her husband Ken Kinuthia were once struggling to make ends meet after their timber business collapsed. However, with Wairimu's determination and innovative farming techniques, they have managed to turn their lives around and are now reaping the benefits of their strawberry farm.
The couple's journey to success began seven years ago when they started with a small land measuring 15 feet by 15 feet. Today, their farm covers over ten acres and is harvesting 3,000 punnets of strawberries every day.
Wairimu, a Women in Agriculture Award Winner, credits her husband for the project's success, recalling the hopeless life he lived after the collapse of their timber business. Kinuthia had resigned to the fact that he was a failure until his wife did the miracle of turning their lives around.
"I was used to making a lot of money from the sale of timber. But the business collapsed after the ban on tree harvesting in Kenya. I moved with my wife to Tanzania where we made good business selling timber, but things went wrong; the business collapsed. We had to beg for fare back to Kenya," Kinuthia says.
Before going into strawberry farming, the couple had a three-acre parcel where they grew cabbages. However, the produce decayed owing to a lack of market. They were introduced to strawberry farming by a farmer from Kiambu County, who promised to buy the produce from them but later vanished.
Wairimu was in a group of 200 farmers who attended theory lessons but the trainer failed to come for the practical sessions at her farm a week later. Despite the challenges, the couple persevered and is now reaping the benefits of their hard work.
"We have grade A, B, and C. Grade A is the fully ripe fruits, which are sold in the local market. Grade B is semi-ripe, which is for the export market. Grade C is mostly sold to jam processors. But the fruits must be of the best quality," Wairimu says.
The couple distributes the produce to supermarkets all over the country and is also exporting to Saudi Arabia and Uganda. They are scouting for more international markets and have started making strawberry jam, although they never got a breakthrough and reverted to selling the fruits raw.
At the farm, sorting and grading for the domestic and export market is done thoroughly to ensure good quality. Wairimu uses minimal chemicals, using the yellow and blue traps for pests and insects.
"The most common disease in strawberries is Botrytis cinerea, a fungal disease caused by extreme cold weather. However, we have never encountered a serious challenge; the secret is keeping the plants healthy from planting and ensuring that the soils have enough nutrients with regular irrigation," Wairimu says.
The storey gardens are made using tubes, timber, lining paper mulching, and depend on drip irrigation system. However, they have since learnt that timber is more expensive, and will use metal bars in future gardens. The couple currently spend Sh50,000 to construct a garden.
Each storey garden is six feet by twenty feet and holds 70 plants and each garden has six planting chambers, meaning the small space accommodates 420 plants. In traditional ways of planting, such space holds about 200 plants.
