A chili buyer is recruiting tens of farmers offering them a ready market for their dried red chilis starting this week as the produce’s local buyers struggle to get the few stocks of the spice left in the country.
According to wholesalers and companies that buy chili in Kenya, most of the crop’s farmers who are usually in Kajiado, Loitoktok, Narok, Ukambani, and the Coast, are contracted to chili exporters, shrinking the pool of farmers they can get the spice from.
Jacob Njagi, a chili buyer based in Kasarani, who supplies Indians in Parklands and Somalis in Eastleigh, is looking for enough farmers to meet the weekly 500 kilograms to one-tonne order of dried Long Red Cayenne and African Birds Eye Chilli (ABE).
“Together with all the spice makers, we are scrambling for the limited quantities of chili in the market. Chilies are not as readily grown as tomatoes and the few farmers who have them on their shamba are contracted to supply raw chili exporters,” Njagi informed.
Because chillies are a long-term crop; they take three weeks in the seedbed, four to five months before they are commercially harvestable and nine months to two years to fully harvest; once a farmer contractually grows them their shamba is spoken for at least one year.
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Chilli exporters offer a lucrative deal to farmers. They pay Sh70 for a kilo of raw chili, agronomic support, contacts for tractor operators ,and sometimes even going the extra mile of providing free seeds.
“Such a farmer will farm exclusively for the exporter and because they visit their farmers regularly, they decide to switch to supplying a different company or individual buyer they will be blacklisted from ever being enlisted as growers again,” Jacob said.
Njagi, who is happy to accept a minimum of 50kg of chili from farmers across Kenya, said that because of the limited pool of farmers they can enlist, the internal demand for chilies by processors who mill them to make chili powders, flakes, pastes, and sauces is as high as ever. “I can take on orders of up to two tonnes every week, but I’m doing half as much because of limited supplies.”
Transport to Nairobi is negotiated between Njagi and individual farmers with the costs of getting the chilis to Nairobi split.
A single acre of well-irrigated and properly managed land can yield four to five tons of fresh Cayenne and one to three tonnes of ABE. When dried, the chilies weigh approximately one-third of their fresh weight. The price per kilogram ranges between Sh100 and Sh300, depending on factors such as season, quality of the crop, and demand from the export market.
“I buy dry stalked red chilis for Sh200 and destalked red chilis for Sh230. They should also be well dried to avoid them getting mold which rots the chillies and causes aflatoxin,” he informed.
Chilis stalks refer to the part of the chili that was attached to the plant. Removing them requires chili buyers to hire workers to remove them.
Well-dried chilies should have a moisture content of 11-12.5 per cent. You can however still tell whether chilies are well-dried or not just by touch. “When you rub a chili on your hands and it cracks and does not bend, you know it was perfectly dried,” Njagi said.
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Buyers prefer dried chilies that are undamaged and whole. Drying chilies in direct sunlight can lower their capsaicin content which is the hotness and pungency of chilies. Direct drying leads to a milder flavor, and may also cause their vibrant red color to diminish turning them orange.
Chilies grow well in a range of climates, performing the best in temperatures between 20°C and 30°C. Fruiting is however affected when temperatures drop below 16°C or rise above 32°C. They perform the best in light, loamy, well-drained soils with a pH of 6.0 to 6.5, though they can adapt to a broader pH range of 4.3 to 9.7. While they are hardy plants, they can occasionally be affected by pests such as thrips, mites, aphids, and whiteflies and fungal diseases, including downy mildew and powdery mildew.
You can register to sell your chili on the form below