Kangari Organic Famers and Marketers (KOFAM) is a group of 24 members, 5 men and 19 women, 3 of whom are below the age of 35 years who have come together to consolidate effort and amplify their voice in creating market for their organic produce. KOFAM Members were trained in different groups at different times, previously with a focus to increase tea production, then meticulously embarked on implementing various practices they had learnt from OACK. To them, it was all new and unbelievable that one could grow plenty of food stuffs from a small piece of land without the commercial fertilizers and sprays they were used to, well aware of their harm but used them nonetheless. With zeal they each on their own had succeeded to revive soil fertility by using well rotten manures, establish kitchen garden with variety of vegetables just as they had been taught. While having better yields and consuming home-grown healthy food is one thing, dealing with the surplus was another altogether especially in a good season. When sales were made on vegetables, the prices were discouragingly low and therefore the need for innovations.
OACK on the other hand had identified this gap and had sought to address it. The organization mobilized some farmers and as the interest grew among growers, so was the birth of KOFAM which has profited from support for market development. Services offered by OACK to the group includes training, exposure and introduction of herbs, linkages with County market stewards and provision of home-level machines for processing the herbs. OACK supported the awareness campaigns to educate the locals on the benefit of consuming organic foods offered by KOFAM members in order to create a direct demand, member’s visibility, easy identification as well as recognition by the Agriculture department, at the County level for spearheading agroecology in Murang’a. “The OACK team has given us confidence to sell our products in the market by giving us the dust coat and campaigning for our products. The market is now good for us and we need more members to increase our supply” says Lucy, the chairlady.
Public knowledge of the existence of healthy supplies in their midst paid off almost immediately with each of the members grabbing his/her market share where customers connected with the suppliers directly purchasing at the farm or by placing orders via the phones requesting delivery. “Basket delivery saves us time that we would spend in the market. Our customers are assured that we will deliver to their workplaces.” Comments Beatrice, member.
The need to satisfy the customers push and motivates them to produce consistently thus every member investing in water harvesting in order to take advantage of better prices during off-season.
“Many of our customers happily buy our vegetables and herbs because they are healthy. They trust us and always call us to deliver to them.” Says. Esther, member.
From the cooperation between OACK and KOFAM is increased farm enterprises among the members from an average of two to four across the membership. Besides tea and dairy, they are commonly engaged in vegetables, herbs, poultry, dairy goats and fruits. This has tremendously improved their wellbeing through consumption of varieties they grow, and incomes with some earning more than double the initial overall incomes. They confirm that they make huge savings from consuming what they produce at family level, some agreeing that they save about 250 shillings daily by avoiding buying milk and vegetables and not forgetting the savings made per season by not relying on bought inputs. Mr. Maina, a member says that he no longer need loans from banks for small projects nor does he depend only on tea proceeds for his livelihood like he used to before. His new income from vegetables and herbs has surpassed tea income.
“Our success speaks for itself; you can see a lot of demand from consumers and others wanting to join us to get a market share. We have moved on well and we are not turning back”. Says Mr. Maina, secretary.
Worth of note also, is the group’s ability to operate democratically and independently through its leadership, having its own set of joint marketing activities, social support system (welfare) and a calendar which ensures its existence beyond OACK’s project period.
Despite the milestones made by the group members both jointly and individually, they still feel that they have not saved enough to access credit from their own reserves which would reduce by far the cost of funds. Lack of adequate land spaces where one can plant more to match the growing demand leading to marketing opportunities is another hurdle the group members face. It is therefore evident that working together in marketing has the potential of creating decent employment for rural populace including women and the youth.
