Day 14 Kakamega May 22, 2011

Hello back in Kakamega

Today was a return day to Kakamega.  Breakfast consisted of 3 hard boiled eggs, toast, fresh mango juice, and some black tea.  I am told that if a person drinks their tea without milk that they are thought of as to poor to afford milk.  I am a creature of habit and I just cannot bring myself to drink tea flavored hot milk.  Hot chocolate is more my speed when it comes to any kind of hot milk.  On Saturday I did try some hot milk with my corn flakes and sugar.  Different!! 

After breakfast Pastor Dave and I discussed the last two days events while we waited for Cousin George to pick up Ben so we could head to Kakamega.  Many questions were swirling in my head from visiting all these fish farms.  During one of our discussions last night it came up that without proper refrigeration once the fish come out of the water the buyer of the fish have the upper hand and will manipulate the price until the farmer is forced to bring down his or her price per fish.  While I was looking at Peters books I noticed one ponds harvest of 300 fish only produced about 1000 Ksh (80 Ksh = $1) profit for the 8 month period after expenses.  Thirteen bucks for 8 months of work can be discouraging.  Of course Peter does not always do that bad it depends on so many variables that seem to be controllable with a little help.  With so many area farmers all competing for the same customers including the Lake Victoria fish farmers (Nile perch) balancing the hundreds of ponds throughout the year to keep a steady supply of fish is important.  Too many questions.

Today on the drive back from Busia we discussed the next steps in trying to help these farmers.  There was an organization that had been formed a few years ago with these farmers but somehow failed to help anyone and fell to the wayside.  Some of the farmers have formed smaller groups or clusters to help market their fish and not saturate the market with so many fish.  Ben tells me that the farmers are eager to restart the larger group and hopefully within a couple of weeks the group can notify the Registrar of Societies that they are meeting again.  I looked at the numbers that are possible here and they are staggering.  Between all the ponds that are in operation and those that are there but dormant it appears that there are close to a thousand ponds available.  A thousand ponds times a thousand fish each equals a million fish for a 8 to 10 month period.  The total capacity is almost $ 2 million per year.  When I went to the fish markets I talked to the vendors and they told me that they sell out of fish every day.  They never have to throw any away.  Kenyans really love to eat fish and the demand will support these fish if managed properly.  The Busia county has well over a million people and all of Western Kenya has millions more.  If the farmers were able to always get 150 Ksh for one fish a pond should generate 150,000 in sales.  The cost of fingerlings and feed should not exceed 30,000 Ksh for the duration of the cycle.  This leaves 120,000 Ksh profit per pond.  So a farmer with 6 ponds should be able to easily have an income of about $10,000 per year.  With the average Kenyan making a dollar or so a day this is really good money.  The farmer named Jackson that I had met yesterday had progressed to 13 ponds and had multiple employees and with the added help he is pretty close to maximizing his profits with what resources he has.  Jackson told me he does pretty well.  He is actually building an office on the site as he continues to think about expansion.  All the farmers have more land to put up more ponds but until they maximize what they have there is no sense putting up any more capacity.         

Tomorrow is a down day for me to take a break and do some fish, yogurt, and passion fruit research.  Macadamia nuts are also another crop that can be very profitable.  I still need to do some more writing.  Ben gave me a 10 page write up of the commercial fishing proposal for the Namboboto area that I need to finish transferring to word along with some of the other projects that I have looked at.  Power goes out a lot here and my lap top has only about 2 hours before it goes blank.

I would like to thank all of you that are reading along with this blog.  Readership is increasing daily and I have been told by some of you that you are passing it along to others.  I really do appreciate it and I pray that you can all at least pray for the good people of Kenya that want to make a better life for themselves. 

Thank you again and God bless

Dave`