FarmBizAfrica is seeking up to 300 farmers growing sunflowers to supply new oil processors launched with grants, who are failing to get up to full production due to insufficient local sunflower supplies.
Founded in 2018, Rafikipay Ltd, a leading sunflower aggregator and processor in Meru, is currently operating at less than half of the company’s processing capacity.
Under its Edible Oil Crops Promotion Project (2023-2027), the national government is distributing more than 570 metric tonnes of sunflower seed worth Sh1 billion to farmers in 24 counties. While this has seen a more than three-fold increase (2,046 hectares to 7,249 hectares) in the area under sunflower production between 2022 and 2023, the lack of a link between these new farmers and emerging processors has left factories undersupplied while farmers are not sure where to take their sunflower seeds.
In an interview with FarmBizAfrica, RafikiPay founder Joshua Gitonga, the recipient of a S750,000 grant in 2022 to upscale his company’s processing operations, said that they are now expanding their farmer recruitment base past their neighbourhood of Meru, Embu, and Tharaka Nithi to all major sunflower growing regions of Kenya to meet the factory’s 60-ton daily dehulling and processing capacity.
With many processors now in the same position, the new portal on FarmBizAfrica will allow farmers to sell sunflowers directly to more than 10 processors across Kenya, connecting farmers to their closest processor.
RafikiPay is paying its farmers Sh50 for every kilogram of sunflower seed they deliver, as one of the many processor struggling to get sufficient sunflower seeds to move into full production.
Simon Musyoka in Kitui County and Valley View Farms in Kwale County are also grappling with the challenge of getting enough farmers to keep their mills operational.
“We were meant to have our mills in operation by the end of this year but this has had to be delayed because we are still grappling with getting enough farmers and issuing them with planting seeds before kick-starting our sunflower milling operations,” said Ganzala, Valley View’s founder.
Yet, while these processors struggle to find farmers, Tony Maima, in Kitale has planted five acres of the oil crop after he received free seeds from the county government, and has been struggling to find a market for them.
“I could grow even more acres of sunflowers just show me a market for it,” he said.
The ideal for each processor is to connect with farmers growing the best seeds in their local area. But processors, such as RafikiPay, are also now willing to look further afield
“The challenge in expanding outside of our catchment areas is building the infrastructure to deliver sunflower seeds to our plant. We have to get the right farmer group organisers who will deliver a large enough group of farmers, train farmers on what sunflower varieties we require them to grow to get the most oilseed, and also establish central aggregation points for farmers in the different regions,” said Gitonga.
To help the processors find local farmer out-growers, who can sell their seeds directly rather than through middlemen, FarmBizAfrica has launched its sunflower seller database. You can register to sell your sunflowers on this link, or open the page: https://farmbizafrica.com/sunflower-seed-sellers/