Politics? No, gold is in the farms, former MP finally sees ‘the light’

Ken Nyagudi tends to his young groundnut plants at his Gem farm. For tasty, disease-free ground nuts, he says the trick is to keep the garden free of weeds to discourage pests. [PHOTOS: COLLINS ODUOR]

KISUMU: Magnificent. Yes that’s the word that best captures the awesome and inspiring work at Reverend Ken Nyagudi’s expansive farm in Karuwa village, Gem, Siaya County.

Smart Harvest got a rare interview with Nyagudi, the former Kisumu Town West MP, and a chance to tour the 50-acre farm he has christened Macedonia Farms.

Here, he runs a thriving fish, horticulture, poultry, tomato, dairy and bee farm that has created jobs for many youth and women.

“I started this right after quitting politics in 2007. This is one of the best decisions I made. People think wealth is in politics but having been on both sides of the divide I can say gold is in the farms,” he says.

The farm is an empire of sorts with state-of-the art technology in green house farming, modern fish and chicken rearing systems that guarantee maximum yield.

‘Largest greenhouse’

“This farm is not just a source of income for me but also a training ground for youth and women where they are equipped with modern farming techniques,” says the politician turned farmer.

He does sprinkler irrigation on 10 acres, has hundreds of indigenous free range chicken roaming on three acres, a 2,200 capacity egg incubator, a permanent pig sty with a capacity of 200 adult pigs, 5,000 assorted trees. The vast farm is a sight to behold!

“We started with maize farming and expanded it through irrigation over 15 acres using sprinklers to green our crop and maximise production,” he says.

Nyagudi runs one of the largest green house farms in Nyanza where he grows succulent tomatoes and fruits popular in the local market. The 30 domes of greenhouses have changed the landscape of the bushy, hilly and sleepy village terrain and for the first time waters of River Yala are pumped into small amounts to irrigate the farm.

His greater plan is to train all youth in the locality so that they can also participate in nation building.

“We are an agricultural economy but we have done little to empower grassroots farmers and dozens energetic youth and women in our villages. If we can harness the potential of natural resources we can make our county and country food secure,” Nyagudi says.

Bread basket

On a larger scale, he wants to contribute in securing the country’s food security.

“It pains me to see Nyanza and Western importing eggs and chicken from a neighbouring country or Rift Valley. I think my county can be food secure and be a bread basket exporting foods to other regions and beyond,” Nyagudi says.

And he believes that educated youth do not have to have white-collar jobs in big cities to make it in life.

“You don’t have to go to Nairobi to be successful. There is wealth in farming. With one green house you can make good returns than those who pay hefty rents in Nairobi, spend hours in traffic jam and struggle to pay bills. It can be done here in the village. I plan to reclocate from Nairobi and be based in upcountry full time. It is relaxing and rewarding,” he says.

His success strategy?

“We live in an information era. I source a lot of literature online and compare notes with local experienced experts and it is paying. Life is a learning process and I like to learn from agriculturalists. I also have something to offer them,” he says.

Makes animal feed

To lure the youth into farming, his farm has a complete modern office with Internet connection and powered with electricity in a bid to make it as corporate as possible.

His farm project has attracted big names like GIZ a German organisation which has sponsored training for many youth and women on modern farming methods at the farm.

Animal feed is one of the biggest headaches for livestock farmers because it accounts for more than 60 per cent of total production costs.

To overcome that hurdle, Nyagudi produces his own animal and fish feeds using crops grown at the farm. The farm has 12 concrete fish tanks with one holding 50,000 fish which should be ready in four to five months.
“I use appropriate Jua Kali technology to make fish feeds, animal feeds. My set back again is erratic power supply.”

Though he looks successful, he says it has been a journey of roses and thorns.

And the thorns have been really pricky, he says.

“When people come to this farm, they assume that it has always been this rosy. But I always remind them that I have overcome serious hurdles before I stabilised. One of the biggest setbacks has been erratic electricity supply. I had to invest Sh2.5 million to have electric power supplied to the farm. But one day disaster struck and it was costly. The transformer blew up and several farm operations like heating the greenhouse and powering the irrigation pumps were affected. We suffered massive losses and it took five months before we recovered from that blow,” he recalls.

High demand

He was forced to suspend a hatchery division of the farm with a capacity of 2,000 chicks monthly due to the power outage.

To avoid such catastrophies in future, he is in constant communication with Kenya Power. Given that every farmer’s dream is to get a bumper harvest, Nyagudi uses all means to achieve that goal.

“We have 30 green houses we use for tomatoes and vegetables. We are rotating plants in the green houses by simply growing ground nuts as a way of replenishing the soils nutrients and remaining organic in our farms,” he says.

Accessing markets

Market penetration is always a challenge for farmers but Nyagudi says he has been lucky.

“When I took my first crates of tomatoes to the market, I found traders from Rift Valley and Central arrived earlier than I. Brokers then quickly agreed that they would buy from us because we had engaged many youth and women here in Gem,” he recounts.

The following day at the market in Siaya it emerged that our costs were significantly lower than competitors because we travel just a short distance (25km) to reach the market.

“With that competitive advantage, the next day it took us two hours to sell about 300 crates of tomatoes. Now I have an established ready market for all my produce,” he explains.

And he says the demand is at times overwhelming.

“Sometimes the demand for fresh produce like tomatoes is so big I cannot meet it. Being a leader in the community, I am challenged to do something about it,” Nyagudi says.
Ten years from now?

He wants to be the biggest fish farmer in Kenya and Africa over the next three to five years.