With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, Africa Harvest developed and implemented a three-yearproject (2003 – 2006) aimed at clearing emergent bottlenecks that threatened sustainable development of tissue culture banana in Kenya. The project was piloted in Meru Central, Maragua and Murang’a districts in the central region of Kenya.

Objectives

1. To provide tissue culture plantlets at a subsidized price to first-time buyers
2. To help farmers organise into groups, and train them on soil, water and pest management techniques for improved banana production, and fruit quality
3. Improving farmers’ access to markets, and market information
4. Developing regional tissue culture banana nurseries to take quality planting materials closer to farmers and reduce cost of the materials

Results

• Twice as many farmers were mobilized as were targeted at project inception; About 1,700 small-holder farmers took up banana farming using tissue culture plantlets. The farmers were organized into functional groups, 13 in Maragua and 28 in Kandara
• Each farmer grew an average of 50 banana plantlets, which translates into more than 80,000 plantlets in total on a cumulative area of 56 hectares
• Some farmer groups took up banana plantlet production as a business, establishing satellite nurseries producing 3,000 to 5,000 plantlets close to farmers growing bananas in the Kandara, Maragua, Meru and Murang’a areas
• Twenty eight (28) demonstration plots were established for each newly formed farmer group, where training in the various facets of successful banana production and marketing was provided
• Twenty six (26) farmers were imparted with extension skills to provide first-line support to other farmers
• Two pronged marketing strategy developed; Farmers created a banana marketing company, TCBEL, of which they were shareholders, and secondly, farmer-managed banana collection centers for aggregating supplies