Campaigns mounted by green campaigners and good prices that sisal fibre is fetching in the world market have failed to reverse a rapid decline in the acreage under the crop in Kenya.
A promotion campaign mounted by the government through Kenya Agricultural Research Institute over the last four years has now raised prospects for the industry. Sisal Board of Kenya director, Naomi Kamau, said farmers had responded well to new Hybrid 11648 and the H1300 sisal varieties released in the market recently.
From being the second export crop after coffee at Independence, natural sisal fibre has failed to withstand increased competition from synthetic fibres. The shift in demand and population pressure saw most sisal land around the capital Nairobi converted into settlement areas.
The situation was further compounded by the closure of the Thika High Level Sisal Research Station in 1972.
In Central Rift Valley where up to the late 1980s sisal, mostly controlled by Europeans, was a leading cash crop and employer, the only notable estates remain Nakuru and Koibatek districts, with a combined 7,200 hectares under the crop.
Ministry of Agriculture officials say that due to heavy debts owed to financial institutions, most of the former sisal estates have been hived off and sold to new owners, who have switched to better paying horticultural crops.
Being an export crop, weakening of the dollar against the shilling and the fact that most of the processing facilities are obsolete continue to undermine production.
“The estates machinery is old and and costly to run. It costs approximately Sh32,500 ($490) to produce one tonne of fibre, of which 40 per cent go to decortications,” says a Sisal Board of Kenya report.
Small scale farmers who produce around 4,500 tonnes of fibre annually lack simple and efficient sisal processing equipment.
But Agriculture officials maintain that sisal is still doing well in Taveta, Voi and parts of Thika.
Currently the global demand of the crop is 400,000 metric tonnes, against a world production of only 250,000 metric tonnes.
Sisal promoters are also counting on the campaign to replace the plastic bags with sisal ones to change people’s attitude towards sisal and sisal farming.
Business Daily Africa
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