Kenya: The strawberry bowl of Africa; simply splendid;



A typical strawberry farm land in Naivasha, Kenya

Kenya is the core place of hi quality agricultural products. Due to the fertile soil and advanced research in agri soil science , Kenya is one of the leading producers of Strawberry and other agricultural products. My recent visit to a strawberry growing farm gave me a lease of fresh concepts about this agricultural crop which really earns in millions to the country.




Strawberry ready to be harvested

Strawberry or Fragaria sp. is a very high value crop with a great scope to generate income and employment. Recently , the Govt. has taken some effective steps to promote value added facilities and conduct conferences. Global organisation came forward to help the farmers  with effective knowledge on strawberry farming and the procurement of seedlings.




Freshly harvested varieties

Anyways a recently published journal on Agri science development of Kenya says that there are certain challenges faced as per the procurement of strawberries are concerned. Farmers has to buy seedlingd from the roadside vendors who sell at .45- .65 $ per plant. Anyways there is an agro enterprise in Limuru which sells seedlings at .3 $ per seedling , a much lower price . The challenge is that the seedlings are sold in unrooted condition proving to be difficult for the farmers to grow effectively without prior experience.




Strawberry saplings

We saw a farm land with strawberry plants sprouting, rooting and even ready ones. The plantation was a very systematic one with equal distances between each sapling and proper quarantine arrangements. It was really mind boggling to see the fresh , colorful strawberries and tasting them was even exciting. We as a visitor were offered fresh hand picked strawberries to get the real taste of it. It was truely awesome.  More exciting was to see the harvesting process and the way they are packed and sent to the market for sale. Kenya has a natural market as well as a huge prospective market in the European Union dominated countries.




Excellent watering technique used in  farms.

We were amazed to see the watering technique as several feet long pipes with equidistant outlets are used to to spray water as well as insecticides. The approximate measurement of the farm lands are almost 21 hectares on average.

I was undoubtedly a nice day amid the nature!!