A Taita-Taveta cooperative society has taken the bold initiative of empowering banana farmers in order to boost their economic status.
The Taita-Taveta Banana Farmers Cooperative Society(TATABA) is a farmers-owned cooperative dedicated to improving the livelihoods of banana farmers through production support, aggregation, value addition and market access.
With more than 800 active members and still going strong, TATABA has blazed the trail in ensuring that banana farmers in the county get value for their produce.
According to the society chairman Mr Ndelejai Msangi(pictured) TATABA has 811 registered farmers members and 10 institutional members.
TATABA aggregates bananas from members and markets them collectively to secure better prices and reliable markets with collective marketing strengthening farmers’ bargaining powers while reducing post-harvest losses. Mr Msangi said over 50 metric tonnes of bananas are aggregated every week.
“The cooperative continues to create sustainable market opportunities while promoting increased productivity, quality improvement and value addition across the banana value chain,” he said.
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The society was also instrumental in the setting up of the banana ripening chamber at Sofia in Voi.
At the same time TATABA is calling for the revival and completion of the stalled banana processing plant in Taveta which stalled when about 70 per cent complete.
The Taveta banana processing factory is a Sh116 million agro-processing facility which was intended to benefit more than 6,000 local farmers.
Currently, Taita-Taveta ranks among the leading banana producers in the country with current acreage under the crop standing at more than 4,000 hectares an increase from 2,080 hectares in 2017.
The county’s annual banana production is estimated at slightly over 62,000 tonnes which goes to local consumption as well as regional and national markets.
However, farmers in Taveta are calling for urgent action to operationalize the Taveta banana processing plant, citing mounting market pressure from an influx of bananas from neighboring Tanzania.
By Pascal Mwandambo
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