Pyrethrum farming is slowly making a comeback in Kenya as county governments take initiatives to promote the crop that was once a major foreign exchange earner.
Over the past six years, production of the cash crop has grown five times, its value eight times and its price up by two-thirds, re-fueling hope of farmers who had forsaken the crop about two decades ago that they could yet again earn from it.
Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) data shows that between 2018 and 2022, while land under pyrethrum farming dropped from more than 6,000 acres to 4,000 acres, the price of the flowers delivered by farmers at factories increased from Sh151.9 per kilogramme to Sh250 for the same quantity following a steady increase.
“In the period under review (2022), the total acreage under the crop was 4,000 acres, an increase of 223 acres from 3,777 acres recorded in 2021. The increase in acreage was as a result of government support in the purchase and distribution of seedling programme in the pyrethrum growing counties as well as favourable climatic conditions,” AFA notes in its 2023 yearbook of statistics.
The national government, counties and development partners have been on a drive to revive farming of the cash crop that is mainly used for the production of pesticides, which has served to bring back to farms thousands of growers who had given up on the crop.
Nakuru, Nyandarua and West Pokot counties lead in the farming of pyrethrum, with more than two-thirds of the land under the cash crop in the country being in the three counties. “Nakuru county had the largest percentage of area under pyrethrum at 29.9 percent followed by Nyandarua and West Pokot at 19.6 and 17.7 percent respectively,” AFA noted.
In total, pyrethrum farming is practised across 18 counties.
Between 2018 and 2022, farmers delivered 2.2 million kilogrammes of pyrethrum dry flowers, valued at Sh496 million. Two-thirds of the flowers valued at 69 percent of the Sh496 million were, however, delivered in 2021 and 2022 alone. This shows the growing value of the crop, which has seen dry flower prices increase by two-thirds over the period.
“Pyrethrum dry flowers delivered increased by 88.2 percent from 500,564 Kgs in 2021 to 941,872 Kgs in 2022 attributed to planting material distribution efforts by the county governments, processors, individual propagators, interfarm and other industry stakeholders," the AFA report says.
"The value of dry flowers increased from Sh106.7 million in 2021 to Sh235.4 million in 2022 attributed to an increase in average farmgate prices from Sh213/kg to Sh250/kg."
