How teacher built mega pixie farm

Mr Peter Mwaka, 71, shows some of his Pixie trees with ripe fruits at his 30-acre Joyland Farms located at Muthyoi village in Makueni county. [John Muia, Standard]

Some nine kilometres off the Machakos-Wote road lies a forest of fruit farms located a few yards from a dusty weather road leading to Emali town. From corner to corner, Joyland Farms at Muthyoi village, Makueni County, is an endless maze of citrus fruits, some ripe while others are still flowering."Have a taste of this, it is called Washington novel. This here is minneola (bell-shaped) while that one over there is Pixie, the sweetest of them all," says Peter Mwaka while taking The Smart Harvest through a tour of his expansive farm which is weighed down by over 4,000 citrus trees, mostly pixie.In a season, which is between June and September, the farm can produce between 50 and 70 tonnes of pixie fruit, not to mention the other citrus fruits. With a kilo going for between Sh80 and Sh120, the farmer is always earning good money.

Up by 3 am

For over four decades, the retired primary school teacher has been into citrus farming. And with 30 acres, it is easy to describe him as the kingpin of pixie in the region.His farm dwarfs other small-time pixie farmers nearby. He also grows oranges, rough lime and yellow lime. His favourite however is the pixie, a yellow-coloured fruit with a rough texture but easy to peel. It is fleshy, juicy and sweet.

Mr Peter Mwaka, 71, at his Pixie nursery bed which holds 150,000 seedlings of the high-value crop. [John Muia, Standard]

The farmer started out in 1976 when he was a newly employed teacher. Back then, he would intercrop his trees with maize and pigeon peas. Later, he phased out the other crops. He says hard work was ingrained in him by his father, a church elder and a man of military mien.It is the same values Mwaka says he has striven to pass to his six children to kill dependency.He would juggle school work and his farm, always waking up his sons at 3am to go and till the farm using oxen-pulled ploughs under the light of lanterns."They might have thought I was a bother to them but today they have seen the fruit of hard work," says the farmer who has created a fruit empire in Ukambani worth tens of millions of shillings.

Allure of farm money

Mr Mwaka says his routine of tending to his trees before leaving for school put him at loggerheads with education inspectors because oftentimes he would arrive late, even when he was the teacher on duty.By then, he had started raking in a tidy sum of money from his venture and the allure of farm money made him somehow lax in schoolwork.He remembers arriving at school late one morning only to find education inspectors at the parade. He was immediately summoned to the head teacher's office and received a tongue-lashing."But I told them I could not arrive early as I wanted. I told them I needed first to improve my home's score however much I wanted to improve the school's mean score," says the old man with a smile.

Muuo Mutiso, a farm hand at Peter Mwaka's Joyland Farms grafts Pixie seedlings for future transplant or sale. The nursery holds 150,000 seedlings. [John Muia, Standard]

He was given a few days to show cause why he should not be transferred. But shock on them, Mwaka had made up his mind to concentrate all his energies on his farm.That evening, he borrowed a typewriter and hammered his resignation letter which he handed in the following day.That was in 2010 February when Mwaka resigned as a teacher before his due date of retirement and plunged into pixie farming. It turned out to be his biggest break."That year alone, I got more money than all collective salaries in my 37 years of teaching career. I bought my first car, a brand new Ford from the UK and remained with enough money to invest," he says.

Trips to Nairobi

His other car, a Toyota Hillux pick-up is ever on the road, mostly to Nairobi to deliver the fruits to his customers. Most of his customers are juice-making companies, supermarkets and exporters.Between 2016 and 2018, Mwaka, supplied pixies to Naivas headquarters in Nairobi where he raked in a fortune."They gave me a good price of Sh170 per kilo and I would deliver three times per week," he says. A trip would be between 1,000 and 1,500 kilos.He, however, says there is a downside with supermarket supplies as the returns (fruits that go bad in the shelves) can be discouraging. He remembers at one time getting returns worth Sh120,000. The cost is deducted from the next supply, he says.

For one to have fruits all year round, the trees need to get sufficient water, the farmer says. A sizable hole around every tree can gulp up to three jerricans of 20 litres each."You have to flood the pit with water after every three weeks. This way, coupled with the right chemicals to control pests will give you fruits throughout the year," explains the farmer.Keen to have a reliable water source for his trees, the farmer sank a borehole in 2013 at Sh1.6 million through a bank loan he had acquired.

Sadly, the borehole caved in at 60 feet. In 2017, he sank another high-volume borehole which has been his mainstay.The farmer says when there is stiff competition in the market, he is able to delay his trees from producing by subjecting them to stress of up to two months, during which period they are denied water."After the stress, you give water and they burst into flower buds ready to give fruits," he says.Initially, he used drip irrigation with the source being a shallow well from a stream that cuts near his farm.When well watered and taken care of, a pixie tree gives the first yield at two years. Those who rely on rainwater will have to wait until five years and the stunted growth means low-quality yield.

Mr Peter Mwaka, 71, shows some of his Pixie trees with ripe fruits. [John Muia, Standard]

The beauty with the fruits, Mwaka says, is that they can be let to stay on the trees when ripe for even two months without going bad as he waits for prices to stabilise. The more they stay on trees, the sweeter they get.

Works with experts

Once every week, he seeks services of experts who visit to offer technical support on pest control and other infestations. He has 10 casual workers who are paid either daily or weekly.Like other businesses, his venture has also taken a toll from Covid-19 with prices plummeting to lows of Sh30 a kilo for pixie and Sh18 for oranges from Sh30. However, Mwaka, a disciplinarian, is not moved by easy money from those who venture into his farm to buy the produce. Often times he berates brokers who sneak in with ridiculous prices. For him, farm gate price is strictly Sh100."A farmer must know his worth. Farming is challenging therefore a farmer should be able to earn maximum benefits," he points out, adding that middlemen take advantage of farmers' lack of unity to exploit them.So how has he benefited from his venture? "My family is stable and they do not lack anything. All my six children went up to university from the proceeds of the farm...it is satisfying." At 71, Mwaka is not slowing down. He is still planting more pixie trees with his eyes now trained on East Africa, European and Asian market. And this looks possible for the farmer whose farm was last year certified by Global GAP and issued with a certificate of export.