Fruitless mango business in Siaya

The Akala trading centre’s bus stage along the Kisumu-Bondo Road is usually abuzz with activities that can keep one entertained the whole day.

The best is the women mango sellers and their antics.

To sell the mangoes they carry in small basins, about 20 women rush to a matatu that has just stopped.

NOT SO JUICY: It is the mango season in Gem but the succulent fruits are going for a song and the sellers are not impressed by their empty pockets. Photo: Titus Munala/Standard

Sometimes they all gather around one potential buyer who has shown some interest in their succulent wares. In the end of the jostling, one of them strikes a deal with a buyer, sometimes all are unlucky.

There are more than 200 women selling a basin of about 30 mangoes for Sh30, which means a shilling a piece. It is a routine they engage in for two annual seasons of the fruit.

Akala and Ndori areas of Siaya County are said to have the largest amount of local varieties of mangoes in western Kenya. However, this avalanche of the fruit has done little to better socio-economic lives of the owners, and the area by extension. Middlemen and juice makers from various parts of the country reap more than locals.

The mangoes are transported to Kisumu, Kakamega, Kericho, Nakuru and Nairobi.

Trucks ferry the commodity from Akala – about 25km from Kisumu, and Ndori, 40km away – after buying a sack of unripe mangoes at a paltry Sh400. Ripe ones are sold for just Sh700.

It is a grim situation as farmers are left with no choice but to sell their produce at a throwaway price. This is also due to glut production, in the June-July and December-January seasons.

The proceeds from the owning and selling of mangoes only suffice for daily sustenance.

Brittle fingers

Rose Akello, 59, who has sold the fruits for over 20 years exemplifies the vagaries of growing and selling mangoes in Siaya. She says there is nothing to show for the business, apart from basic sustainability.

"Hakuna pesa kwa maembe. Ni ya kununua unga tu (There are poor returns from mangoes. The money we get is merely for survival)," says Akello, whose fingers are brittle. She says her fingers have been affected by constant handling of the fruits.

Akello makes between Sh100 and Sh120 daily. Apart from the mango business, Akello and her husband farm on their one-acre piece of land.

"I farm from 6am up to about 9am, and then come to the market to sell mangoes. In the afternoon, I go to different homes to buy the fruits, which I sell the following morning," she explains. The mangoes from other homes add to the ones she harvests from trees at her home.

Another seller, Beatrice Akinyi says she has fruitlessly sold mangoes for the last ten years.

Akinyi, who hails from Seme, about three kilometres from the trading centre, says the glut is the major cause of low prices.

Akello and Akinyi work hard in their business, but mangoes are simply for meeting their basic needs.

Their hope of doing better is in the mango sellers coming together to form a co-operative or marketing group.

"Middlemen take advantage of us. Worse still, the Government has not tried to woe investors to set up a factory here, which would pay us more and create employment opportunities," says Akinyi.

Nyanza Province is a major producer of mangoes, after Eastern Province and Coast.

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