I discovered greener pastures in banana flour

If you want to fetch more money as a farmer, you are better off selling a finished product as opposed to a raw produce.

Monica Kithinji, a banana farmer from Nkubu, Meru County can attest to this fact.

“I discovered a long time ago that the raw banana fetches less money. I started making banana flour, and I can say the venture has been worthwhile,” says the 73-year-old farmer.

Her banana farm supplies the surrounding environs with banana flour and she says she can barely meet the high demand.

“People have discovered the value of banana flour and they all want it. I get so may orders which I cannot meet,” says Kithinji.

In a month, she says she makes Sh400,000 profit from selling the nutrient-rich flour. But it has not always been this smooth, she confesses.

“When I started this mission some 15 years back, coffee was the only cash crop that thrived. But something happened and the prices started going down dampening the hopes of farmers. That is when farmers started inter-cropping bananas with coffee to see if they could make something,” she says.

During that crisis, Kithinji uprooted all coffee in her ten-acre farm replacing the plantation with banana suckers.

She was lucky that just as she was venturing into the business in 2005, United Nations Development Programme through the Ministry of Agriculture sponsored 90 farmers from Tharaka Nithi and Meru counties for a bananas value additional training.

In 2006, 20 women who were part of the trained group from Meru County formed and registered a company they called Wedo Entrepreneurs Ltd.

Because of management issues, the business collapsed in 2009 and members went their separate ways.

At the same time, Kithinji’s husband passed on in June 2009, which was also a great blow to her.

“As a way of relaxing and getting things off my mind, I took off to the US to visit my son. It is here that I came across an ailing lady whose doctors had prescribed a diet rich in green bananas to manage her illness,” she says.

From that point, Kithinji embarked on a serious study on the nutritional value of green bananas.

“I consulted all the doctors and nutritionists I knew. I came to learn that bananas help reduce heartburn, have a high potassium concentration than any other food product which is important as it replaces sodium in nutrition and balances the body fluids. It is great for people suffering from coronary heart disease, intestinal disorders, arthritis, goiter and diabetes.”

Upon returning to Kenya in 2010 she registered her own company Wedo Foods which processes banana flour. Using her savings she bought a flour grinding machine and kicked off the project. She has contracted over 50 farmers who supply her with the raw material so she can sustain the wide market. As expected, starting off had its fair share of challenges.

“At first, I used to dry my produce in the hot sun, but this was a challenge because it was slow and tedious.”

Her prayers were answered when USAid came to her aid and constructed for her a solar drier.

She supplies banana flour to Kirinyaga Millers and Stawi Foods and Fruits Ltd. She has also contracted two senior sales managers to assist her in the chain of distribution one in Meru and the other in Nairobi.

Future plans?

“I hope to start exporting my flour to Europe. I am still doing my research to get connected with suppliers there,” he says.