Oil price rises hit hardest in fruit, and by farm location

“The prices of fruits that I sell will have to go up because I can’t continue with the same pricing as before the new fuel prices, as the production cost has already increased,” he said.

“There will be more work in convincing the customers on why they need to buy fruits to avoid them going bad. You’ll find me spending a lot of time at the market and for the one tonne of Pixies that I sell in less than a week, I may require more time to sell,” he said.

But the pressure on prices is two-fold and spread unevenly across regions.

For Joshua, who sells his fruits in Nairobi’s Marikiti market, transport costs from Makueni jumped last week, from around Sh8,000, which he spends to fuel his own pick up truck.

“My cost of transport will go to Sh9,500 or even Sh10,000, because I have seen since midnight it is costing Sh227 per litre for petrol. Now it will make me think on how I can hire a lorry or use a matatu to Nairobi.”

However, switching to part loads in lorries or using matatus carries iis own additional costs.

“It takes a lot of time to secure a matatu or even lorry that’s accepting to carry my 1 tonne of Pixies to the market. For my vehicle, I just park and leave for the market.”

Public transport, he said, “doesn’t get you exactly to the market and you end up spending even more. Also, you can’t like to leave anytime you want as you are constrained according to how the matatus work.”

“Also, you see, the Matatu Owners Association has announced an immediate hike of fare after the announcement by EPRA, so it’s going to be hard for us everywhere,” he said.

For other farmers in his area, however, the pressure is driven more by production costs, with irrigation ongoing, and, said Joshua, often needed all year.

He points to neighbours who have been getting less for their fruits than he does by having them bought from the farm. It means they are not now struggling over how to transport their sales. But their climbing production costs have been severe.

“Their cost of production will be high,” he said, meaning “as of yesterday (before the new fuel prices), a neighbour sold to people from Marikiti who had come to get the fruits. for sale in Nairobi today, at Sh80 per kg. Today, our other friend has sold Sh150 for a kg. The price has already doubled within hours.”

“Things go up immediately when the fuel price hikes. And you see, this is my neighbour selling directly to people selling at the market without brokers, just a farmer and clients.”

Joshua is less pressed on production costs having switched his machinery over to LPG two months ago.

“ I switched from using diesel to LPG gas, saving Sh2,700. I had to modify my machines that I use at the farm when switching off from petrol to LPG. When using petrol to irrigate my farm, I would use Sh4000 for the two days a week that I irrigate.”

“For now, I fill the 6kg cylinder at Sh1300 and it irrigates a whole acre of tomatoes that I have now planted, for the two days that I irrigate. I am at least saving something little, rather than spending almost Sh5,000 a week to irrigate only,” he said.

However, with farmers now looking everywhere for options to reduce machinery and transport costs, the impact is proving hardest for those furthest from their markets, and most tied to irrigation. And the pressure is only set to increase.

There are four factors that affect oil prices in Kenya. The most important is the price on the international market, with Kenya importing all its refined oil. These prices surged from March this year as a result of the US attacks on Iran and its retaliatory closure of the Hormuz Strait through which about a fifth of the world’s oil was being transported.

Prices eased in June, but have since surged to new highs in September and risen further in October.

The government’s new pump prices are based on September international prices, meaning that without any breakthroughs in the US-Iran war, more price rises lie ahead in Kenya.

The second factor in Kenyan oil prices is the exchange rate, with oil trading globally in US dollars. Kenya is running a trade deficit that used to be offset by remittances from Kenyans living overseas, but these have now fallen, meaning there is constant downwards pressure on the trading value of the shilling.

The currency has been fairly stable in 2026, with the government blocking a widening range of imports, and using Central Bank reserves to trade in shillings. But with staple food shortages ahead, it may prove impossible to prevent increased food imports and a weaker shilling, thus making oil bought in dollars more expensive again.

The other two factors in local prices are the cost of transporting oil that lands in Mombasa to individual towns, which also rises as oil prices climb, and government taxes on oil, with VAT on oil currently at 8 per cent.