Ask any rice farmer what is one of their biggest headaches and they will tell you broken rice. Why? Broken rice fetches poor prices at the market and demand is low. With that reality, many rice farmers choose to throw it away or feed it to poultry.
But a group of women from Manyata village in Kisumu County, have found a smarter way to turn this trash into cash. The group — Nyabende Support Programmes which comprise 50 members — grinds the rice into flour to make sizzling snacks which fetch good money.
“Nearly half of the rice we produce as a group is broken rice which we had to sell at throw away prices or feed it to chicken. But thanks to a training by the Ministry of Agriculture on value addition, we now convert the rice to flour which we use to make snacks,” says Caren Omanga the group’s chairlady.
Own an eatery
According to Omanga, when rice farmers harvest, they grade their rice into whole and bad rice (broken rice).
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Previously, in a season, the women would get approximately 25 to 30 bags of rice but many a times, most of it would end up as bad (broken) rice and they were forced to throw it away.
“Now we make tasty chapatis, cakes and rice sticks (pasta) which are popular here. We occasionally make cakes for weddings and birthdays. We are planning to scale up our production and expand our markets to major supermarkets in Kisumu,” says Omanga. All this amazing work is done at the group’s eatery in Ahero town. They also sell their produce to retail shops in Kisumu.
Having embraced value addition, the group makes nearly five times what they would have made had they sold the rice in its raw form.
“Two kilos of broken rice fetch Sh200 in the market. But when ground into flour and used to bake half a kilogram of cake, it earns us Sh800 to Sh1,000,” says Omanga.
Other than their individual farms, the women have a one and a half acre farm located in Awach Rice Scheme in Nyando Subcounty and at times members lease out their private farms to the group. The group makes the cakes from rice harvested in their communal farm.
The lives of the women who came together in 2008 to empower each other economically, have been transformed by this project and poverty which was a common feature is now a past tense.
“We came together so that we can sell and market our produce as a team having realised that selling the produce individually fetches poor prices. We decided to come together to ease the burden of HIV which had impoverished many families,” explains the team leader.
Eight years down the line, the women are now the queens of value addition and living comfortably.
So how does the group operate?
How project works
The chairlady explains that after the members harvest the rice, it is dried by being spread in the sun at members’ homesteads.
“After the rice dries well, we take it to Ahero town to a mill where the husks are removed. After that sorting, it is then that we can tell, how much of the rice is broken. We sell the whole rice and the broken ones undergo value addition,” she says.
They then take the broken rice to the normal maize grinding mill where it is processed into flour at a cost of Sh10 per two kilo. The flour is then ready to prepare the different snacks, which happens at the eatery. Each of the women knows has to make the snacks and they share the responsibilities equally.
In their endeavour, one of the challenges they face as a group of rice farmers is the erratic rainfall patterns.
“Sometimes the rains fail and our harvest drops which impacts on our profits. Our harvests depends on the rains. When the rains fail short we get 10 bags but on a good weather we get 25 to 30 bags. But we are learning coping mechanisms,” the chair says.
Empowerment
In the farm, they have shared duties and all of them participate in planting, weeding and harvesting.
Everyone takes turns every day to chase away birds from the farm.
The members also take turns to prepare chapatis, mandazis and cakes.
Apart from sharing the profits equally, part of the proceeds they get from selling their products is injected in table banking where members can borrow loans to manage their personal businesses. In 2014, the group managed to save up to Sh1million.
As a way of giving back to the community, they have also invested in some assets that the community can benefit from.
“So far, we have bought two motorcycles to provide transport to victims of gender based violence to health centers. This form of violence against women is common in this area,” says Omanga.
The ambitious 50 also run a feeding programme and a community day care centre that targets orphans and vulnerable children.
Future plans?
If get sufficient funds, Omanga says they plan to start making charcoal from rice husks, considered a waste product. Omanga says they also plan to start making bricks from rice stalks once they save enough money to buy the necessary equipment.
