A farmer in Bomet is cashing in on the demand for nutrient-rich Angaza and Nyota bean varieties, turning the crop into a thriving enterprise.
Helen Keti's journey began with a craving for eating stones, which led her to discover the benefits of high-iron beans, significantly improving her health and financial status.
Her cravings for stones turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When she couldn't get her daily supply, she turned to eating beans, which ended her craving and opened up a new business venture.
She prides herself on having started a cooperative to help other bean farmers aggregate and access the market for their produce.
As the founding member of Abosi Top Hill Cooperative Society Limited in Sotik subcounty, Bomet county, Keti said besides improving her health, beans have become her biggest source of income.
The cooperative society was started in 2017 as a self-help group with 30 members.
The main objective of the group was to start table banking and have a merry-go-round where members could easily get school fees loans.
The membership continued to increase to 85 and in 2018, they changed the group into a community development organisation.
In 2019, three members of the CBO attended a meeting where there was a demonstration farm on high-iron bean farming by a team from the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
CIAT is an international research and development organisation dedicated to reducing poverty and hunger while protecting natural resources in developing countries.
“I was impressed with what I saw and learned, and I decided to also start a small demo on my farm. I bought Nyota and Angaza bean seed varieties from Kalro to start the demo farm so that I could see the difference between the other varieties and the high-iron beans,” she said.
“Production of the high-iron beans is different from the other beans. Initially, I used to plant the local varieties and would harvest about one bag from an acre. But after planting these ones, I was able to get eight bags of Nyota beans in an acre,” Keti said.
After that, she decided to get into bean production as a business, and they procured more seeds for other members of the CBO.
The membership continued to increase, and in order to bring everybody on board, Keti said they decided to form a cooperative.
The cooperative was registered on January 13, 2020, as Abosi Top Hill Cooperative Society with a membership of 150. Keti said by then, prices were good and a kilo was selling at Sh200 from as low as Sh40.
“This was something we had never imagined. We were used to selling beans at Sh40 due to the poor quality of the beans, so brokers were coming in and taking advantage of us,” she said.
More farmers joined the cooperative once they learned the benefits of the high-iron beans.
“The team of experts has continued to offer us training to help improve production and this has seen an increase in membership. More farmers are coming on board, we ensure we get certified seeds from Kalro,” Keti said.
The cooperative sells directly to off-takers who buy from them, and this has guaranteed a ready market.
“We aggregate our beans and sell in quantities of tonnes. This has changed the livelihoods of many families in the area. Most of our women used to go to the forest to look for firewood and sell it to local hotels and the community. But this has changed. Now most of the women are in their farms growing beans,” she said.
“They do not have time to go to the forest to look for firewood. They are busy weeding their beans, spraying their beans, or tending to them and earning some good money after three months,” she added.
On the nutritional value of beans, Keti said she had been eating soil since she was 12-years-old, and this stopped when she ate Angaza.
“When I took beans in 2020, it took about one month to stop eating stones. The high-iron beans have been useful to many women who had the craving for stones. You know, when you are taking the stones, you are lacking iron in your body. Women lose blood during the menstrual period, and this means losing iron in our bodies,” she said.
Eating the high-iron beans is good for the body, and she ensures she serves beans in most of her family meals.
They are still not able to meet the current demand for the high-iron beans. To increase production, farmers are increasing the acreage under bean farming, leasing land and encouraging more farmers to join the cooperative.
In 2020, the cooperative produced five tonnes, which increased to 23 tonnes in 2022, and last year, they were able to produce 33 tonnes.
They sell mainly to food processing companies in Nairobi, but they also sell to schools and the local market.
The cooperative is planning to start adding value to the high-iron beans in the next two years.
“We want to add value to our beans. Even if we are going to polish and package it, that is adding value to it, and we will get a premium price compared to selling it to the processors,” she said.
Keti assured farmers that there is a ready market for the high-iron beans.
“The cooperative is there to offer a market for the farmers. We would wish to reach more than 2,000 youth to start growing beans. Most of our youth are looking for white-collar jobs, and there are jobs in the country, but if you can decide to grow the beans and do it as a business, you are in a job already,” she said.
Rosa Bett, Bomet Agriculture CEC, said the county has been promoting the growing of high-iron beans and supporting farmers in over five subcounties.
Farmers have taken up bean farming and are reaping the fruits of their labour.
“Our interest to promote the high-iron beans started from the fact that we wanted to address malnutrition issues. We realised that we needed to have something that we can do in a short time to be able to change even the lives of our people,” she said.
According to the 2022 Kenya Demographic Health Survey, Bomet has higher levels of malnutrition compared to the national average.
The stunting rate among children under five years is at 22 per cent compared to a national average of 18 per cent. Wasting prevalence is at three per cent while the prevalence of underweight is 10 per cent among children.
Bett said there have been testimonies that beans have assisted in reducing iron deficiencies.
She said the county will invest in this because it is a short-term crop of three months and it is able to give food and put money into farmers' pockets.
“We have a budget of Sh5 million and we intend to increase it going forward. We want to get them bean seeds so that they are able to begin and scale up the exercise,” Bett said.
A farmer can fetch Sh10,000 for a bag of beans compared to maize, which is about Sh3,000 per 90kg bag, the CEC said.
“We want to make this the third major crop after maize and potatoes for us in terms of food,” she said, adding that the county is also planning to incorporate the beans into the school feeding programme for about 52 schools.
David Karanja, National Coordinator of the Bean Project at Kalro, said high-iron bean varieties have the potential to bridge the gap between production and consumption in Kenya.
"Kenya has about one million farmers growing beans on roughly 2.5 million acres of land," Karanja said.
"However, they only produce 600,000 tonnes annually, while the national consumption is 750,000 tonnes. This leaves a deficit of 150,000 tonnes, hence the need for farmers to adopt new, high-yielding and nutritious varieties."
With behavioural changes, such as growing new varieties, using certified seeds and adopting good agronomic practices, farmers could significantly increase their yields.
"Farmers can move from producing three to four bags per acre to about eight to 12 bags per acre. By doing so, we can double the production to about 1.2 million tonnes per year. This would not only meet the national demand but also potentially increase consumption to about 1 million tonnes annually," he said.
To address these challenges, Karanja said Kalro has introduced high-iron bean varieties like Nyota and Angaza to farmers.
"These varieties are aimed at improving production and reducing malnutrition," he said, adding that they have been piloting this initiative in Bomet, Nakuru, Laikipia, Nyeri and Machakos counties.
Jean Claude Rubyogo, Global Bean Programme leader of the Alliance of Biodiversity and CIAT, said they work with national research organisations to do demand-driven research for farmers and consumers.
The global research organisation, which is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, consists of around 13 centres that decided to work on various commodities essential for food security, incomes and gender empowerment.
“We make sure that what we do fits the people's needs, either as food, for making money or for the ecosystem,” he said.
Beans are an important crop and are a superfood. “It has plant-based proteins, micronutrients like iron, zinc, carbohydrates, and several vitamins. It also has fiber which is important for digestion,” he said.
Beans are also important in improving finances for smallholders, the majority of whom are women.
“Beans are also good for the ecosystem because they can be integrated or intercropped with others like maize, cassava and banana many others. So, you can have layers of these tall crops and beans in the middle,” said Claude, who is also the director of the Pan Africa Bean Research Alliance, which brings together national research institutions in 31 countries in the bean programme and the value chain actors.
He added that beans mature faster than other crops, so they can avail food and cash to the communities before maize or other crops. They also fix nitrogen, which improves the planet, and are good for the climate because they mature fast and use water efficiently.
Claude said they aim to increase the resilience and productivity of farmers by developing varieties and genetic materials that are good for the climate.
He said there is a need to focus on varieties that are climate and disease resilient to ensure the farmer can always harvest despite the challenges they face.
They work with national research organisations like Kalro to test the materials in their countries, in their different agro-ecological areas and for different consumers, and later identify the varieties that are good for each country.
“We bring several innovations, like the corridor approach, which links the research and the utilisation and the users through demand-led research systems,” he said.
Once the varieties are released, they also develop partnerships with other actors, seed producers, grain traders, schools and counties like in Kenya. This is so they can expand the technology to many communities, and the private sector can produce en masse.
“So, through the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance, we develop these technologies based on the consumer and farmer demand. We also have a component of education on nutrition like the high-iron beans, which are more nutritious,” he said.