I paid fees with my butternut cash

Pamela Nkatha at her father’s farm in Kawanjara, Embu County. [PHOTO: FELIX MURIITHI/ STANDARD]

At the beginning of this year, Smart Harvest brought you an inspiring story of a teenager from Subukia who had gone against the usual teen script of ‘twerking.. Facebooking... tweeting’. He was a thriving farmer. Looks like there is another gem from Embu County, 15-year-old Pamela Nkatha.

A firstborn, Nkatha is a passionate butternut farmer, who is determined to transform her life and that of her family through farming. “I have always loved farming since I was a child. I plan to be an agricultural production officer when I complete my studies. Having been raised up by farmers, it was only natural that I develop the passion,” Nkatha tells Smart Harvest at her father’s farm in Kawanjara, Embu County.

“I like growing butternuts because they grow faster and fetch good money,” she says. Her speciality is Squash butternut.

Nkatha, who has just joined Form One at Don Bosco Girls in Embu, says she went solo as a farmer in 2013.

“When I was small, I used to assist my parents on the farm and I learnt how to plant different crops, take care of them and control diseases and pests. I learned a lot. In 2013, when I was in Class Seven, I asked my dad if I could do my farming solo. I wanted to make my own money. He agreed and gave me a portion of his land. I was drawn to butternut farming because it looks easy,” she says.

Sh45,000 profit

Nkatha’s father, Fredrick Machaki, picks up on the interview: “Although she kept requesting me for farming space since she was in Class Five, I ignored it until when she was in Class Seven. For the one and a half years she has grown the crop, we have seen the results. When she is not reading, she is busy at her one eighth shamba tending to her crops,” Machaki says.

For her first planting, she sent her father to buy the seeds at the Kenya Farmers Association. She planted them and they were ready for harvest in three months. She is now reaping the fruits of her labour.

Mr Machaki adds: “The most remarkable thing is that she paid 100 per cent of her Form One fees with money from the farm,” says the father.

Just before reporting to school, sometime in January, she sold 900kg of the fruit from her farm. She sold each kilo at Sh50 making Sh45,000 which she used as her fees, explains the father. To ensure Nkatha has time for her studies, her father helps her sell her produce in local markets and supermarkets within Embu County. Nkatha grows her butternuts at a spacing of 3 by 3 feet.

After planting, she sprays twice; at the end of first month and during flowering to control pests which affects quantity and quality of the produce. Nkatha also grows bananas, sweet potatoes, cabbages and tomatoes which she sells together with her butternuts at supermarkets.

The young girl is not just an ace farmer, she also knows about market dynamics: “Brokers buy a kilo of butternut at Sh20. Each kilo goes at Sh50 in the supermarket. This is pure exploitation! Sh30 is a lot of money if lost per kilo.”

Butternuts thrive in an area with water and Nkatha is lucky because an irrigation plant was recently installed in the area.

Lauding what Nkatha is doing, Hilda Warungu, a social worker at a children’s home in Thika says it is important for parents to engage their children in economic activities like farming at an early age.

“Children should be taught farming at an early age so that they do not develop a negative attitude towards it when they grow up,” she says.