An ex-policeman is making a tidy sum from growing paw paws in his farm in Nakuru following an uncertain retirement nearly five years ago.
After his retirement he did not have any idea of his future; and that of his family. His formal employment salary was just a daily 'hand-to-mouth' business.
Being in the police service, Festus Mutiga thought this was his lifetime occupation. But after retirement the story changed. He had to find something to do for a living.
A father of three, Mutiga, who served as a police constable in different locations in the country, decided to venture into farming. The decision was mainly to grow maize and other crops for subsistence and some little income for the family. He worked in the North Eastern Kenya; Nairobi and Mombasa.
Entry into farming saw him harvest 50 bags of maize from his 3-acre farm from which he made Sh10,000 each planting season. But this was also not sufficient to support the family's nutrition and economic needs. He had to craft a better way to increase his farm produce.
The first thing that came into his mind was what he learnt from his mother who motivated him into practicing farming. Back in 1970 their father died leaving her mother to look after them. With no job at that time the mother used the little she got the farm to pay for their school fees.
“When I remembered our history I decided to venture into farming with an aim of getting more than what my mother used to get. Also availability of the shamba was the only open opportunity since I was an old mzee", he said.
Back in year 2013 a certain friend of mine who knew that I was very much interested in farming introduced me to Meru Green Horticultural (MGH) group which deals with fruits and horticulture.
After several meeting without knowing what to grow one of them asked me whether I would like to try pawpaw farming but at first I thought the idea was not good but after researching and going around the area I realized that there was no one who was doing such kind of farming. I decided to take the challenge and planted thousands stems of pawpaw in my one acre piece of land which was underutilized.
It took me twelve months of patience but my first month of harvest I was able to harvest more than 200 bags which was a great start. Though there are many challenges with this area such as lack of water I have been able to buy a water pump which helps me during dry season to pump water from the nearest river.
After the first harvest I realized that pawpaw market was not readily available and this almost made me to give up with such kind of farming since a 50kg bag was being sold at a price of two thousand.
Later on MGH approached me and asked me to be selling my produce to them. That was a golden opportunity since they offered me a price which I could not imagine .They proposed to me that they will be buying a kilo of pawpaw at sh50 for grade one and sh45 for grade two.