KENYA – Makueni County in Eastern Kenya has commissioned a newly built integrated grain value addition plant, to clean, sort, polish, grade and package beans, pigeon peas, cowpeas and green grams for both domestic and export markets.

The Ksh210 million (US$1.75m) factory will cushion the farmers against post-harvest losses by providing enough storage, quality value addition and make agriculture a profitable venture.

It is expected to have a production capacity of 2 metric tonnes per hour, translating to 32 metric tonnes per day and night shift.

The final product will be packaged in 50 kgs- 100 kgs bags, and soon will start packaging for 1kg and 2kgs for supermarkets and wholesale outlets.

According to reports by Kenya News Agency, the plant will buy grains from local farmers through organised cooperatives thus providing a ready and direct market for the producers and cutting off unscrupulous brokers.

The county is also in conversation with other counties in the country i.e., Kitui, Meru and Tharaka Nithi counties which produce a lot of pulses to provide the needed raw materials.

According to data from the County department of Agriculture, over 230,000 hectares are put under pulse production every year with an average of 190,000 metric tonnes.

Other than having modern equipment, it is also fashioned with a storage area of 200 metric tonnes (3,300 bags of 90 kgs) of raw materials and 170 metric tonnes (2000 bags of 90 Kgs) finished product storage area.

In future, the modern facility will be upgraded to split, de-hull, mill and blend various flour products from high value crops.

The grain factory which was initiated in 2019 under the leadership of the outgoing Governor Kivutha Kibwana, was funded by the World Bank through the Kenya support for Devolution Programme and implemented by the Makueni County Government.

Its establishment is set to spur rapid economic development in the area. So far 15 workers have been employed with more expected to join the factory soon.

During Governor Kibwana’s tenure, the county government championed for investments along the agri-food value chain through establishment of a number of processing facilities dedicated to value addition of food products.

Some of the notable investments include setting up a tomato pulping factory, establishment of a fruit juice processing line at the Makueni Fruit Processing factory and opening of a dairy processing plant with an installed capacity to pasteurize 1000 litres of milk per hour.

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