Marion Moon: The surplus produce in foreign countries got me interested. PHOTO | LYNET IGADWAH
By LYNET IGADWAH, ligadwah@ke.nationmedia.com
Marion Moon was restless during a tour of many
countries, an adventure she paid for using her savings. For a month she
was away in South East Asia, Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines to do
some soul-searching.
While out of Kenya, she started wondering how the farmers in these countries she visited were producing surpluses.
“The culture shock got me so curious and that’s
when I started questioning what it is that Kenyan farmers are not doing
right to get such bounty harvests,” she said.
On returning home, Ms Moon, 32, of Wanda Organic, a
company that imports organic fertiliser, researched on food production
and found out that while Kenyan farmers were “depleting their soils”
with chemical fertilisers, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand were
relying on organic farm inputs.
During the research, she stumbled upon the workings
of Eliseo Cruiz, the formulator of plantmate organic fertiliser. She
contacted Dr Cruiz for samples whose tests at a friend’s farm “were
amazing; so I decided this was what I am going to invest in.”
Fertiliser and seeds are a big business in Kenya going by the scramble for the inputs during planting seasons.
While limited access persists, Ms Moon Kenyan
farmers were getting a raw deal in the use of inorganic fertiliser,
something she says has confined farmers to the tiny corner of complaints
about poor yields every year.
In 2012, she established Wanda Organic to import organic fertiliser known as plantmate bio-organic from Phillipines.
The fertiliser that is recognised by the Government
of Philippines as one of the best in that country has 22 microorganisms
that unlock soil nutrients to improve yields.
It contains nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, micronutrients, probiotics, enzymes, and amino acids.
“The product works on the soils physical, biological and chemical properties,” Ms Moon, the Wanda Organic CEO, said.
It has been tested in Machakos and Makueni counties
where farmers reported up to 30 per cent yield increases. Athman
Kamangara, a farmer in Yatta, who grows French beans, maize, bananas,
oranges and mangoes on a 2.4 hectare farm, says he started using the
product in March 2014 and has seen better yields.
Plantmate maintains soil moisture during dry spell an repels some pests such as aphids and white flies, he said.
He buys a 50kg bag of Plantmate fertiliser at
Sh3,150, which price Ms Moon says should drop to between Sh2,000 and
Sh2,500 when local production starts by next year.
Government-sponsored DAP sells for Sh1,800 per
50kg bag, but Sh3,500 in the market. Under the government subsidy, CAN
is Sh1,500 while the market rate is Sh3,000 a bag.
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