NAKURU, Kenya, April 3 – An American firm, Kentegra Biotechnology, is set to open a pyrethrum factory in Nakuru County that will help revive the ailing sector.
The new facility will create 600 direct jobs before the end of the year.
The US firm is among privately owned firms that were granted a permit to extract, process, and sell pyrethrum products after the industry was liberalized seven years ago.
Micah Thuo, the Head of Operations at Kentegra, said once completed, the facility is expected to process over 300,000 tonnes of pyrethrum by the end of this year and more than 750,000 tonnes by the year 2025.
The firm, Thuo said, has contracted more than 2,000 farmers and achieved the highest coverage at more than 600 acres in Gilgil, Kuresoi South, and Molo subcounties.
“We hope to work with thousands of new and existing pyrethrum farmers to achieve our goal,” said Thuo.
The entry of private companies has shaken a monopoly market that was enjoyed by the state-owned Pyrethrum Processing Company of Kenya in Nakuru.
Other private pyrethrum processors who have been issued permits are Africhem Botanicals, Pypro, and HighChem.
Africhem, which has pitched tent in Gilgil, Naivasha, and Molo sub-counties, has contracted 333 farmers for a total of 216 acres.
HighChem has 62 farmers and 24.5 acres, while Africhem and Pypro have planted 10 acres each in Kuresoi North and Bahati sub-counties, respectively.
The counties where the crop is grown are Nakuru, Narok, Nyandarua, Nyeri, Meru, Laikipia, West Pokot, Uasin Gishu, Elgeyo-Marakwet, Nyamira, Kisii, Bomet, Kericho, Kiambu, Trans Nzoia, Murang’a, Kirinyaga, and Bungoma.
Kentegra is a United States-based company that contracts farmers and buys dried flowers from them. It started operations in Kenya after signing an investment deal with the Kenyan government in August 2017.
In January, the County Government of Nakuru entered into a collaboration agreement with the United States of America to promote agriculture, technology transfer, trade, and investment opportunities that could transform the livelihoods of the residents.
Under the deal, the US government will provide, through the Kentegra network, a Sh61 million grant to expand the pyrethrum growing base in Nakuru County.
Kenya became the most important supplier to the American market in 1940, shipping the flower in its dry form for processing in America to make a liquid that was and still is the basis of the best household insecticide.
In 1945, the East Africa Extract Corporation (the subsidiary of Mitchell Cotts, a British trading conglomerate) built its factory in Nairobi’s Industrial Area, which, in 1956, managed to achieve a 93 percent extraction rate, the highest theoretical rate possible.
Pyrethrum production reached its peak in Kenya in 1993 at 18,000 metric tons, with more than 200,000 farmers providing a livelihood to more than two million people.
However, in the mid-1990s, the growing use of synthetic insecticides in America (Kenya’s largest market), which were cheaper, led to a decline in the demand for the commodity.
Nevertheless, growing environmental concerns in developed countries over the use of synthetic insecticides contributed to a modest upturn in Kenya’s output in the late 1990s.
