04/12/2012 (AllAfrica.com) - Oil palm is emerging as an alternative cash crop for residents of Western Province who have mainly relied on sugarcane farming for years.

Mr Benedict Omondi from Mabale village in Busia County is among those who have turned to oil palm farming due to poor returns.

"I decided to try oil palm growing in order to tap its vast market and high returns and hope that once a factory is established, we will reap better returns," he said.

Mr Samuel Bwire, a farmer in Samia District, said he had embraced oil palm farming due to its long lasting nature.

"I have about 30 trees and every month I normally harvest some fruits from which I make oil for sale locally. This is because we are yet to get machines that can help in processing," he said.

Mr Bwire said that diabetes and high blood pressure patients are the major consumers of his products.

So far, out of the 100,000 seedlings that the Ministry of Agriculture imported from Costa Rica in 2008, more than 80,000 have been planted in the region.

According to Western provincial director of agriculture, Mr John Cheruyiot, the crop has a survival rate of 70 per cent. He said research had shown that oil palm could do even better in the province.

Were more people to embrace oil palm farming, the government could save billions of shillings used for importation of edible oils every year.

Palm oil market

Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture show that Kenya spends over Sh16 billion on importation of edible oils annually, 90 per cent of which is palm oil, which can be produced locally.

Mr Cheruyiot said that this is an indicator that the country has a market for the product. "The seedlings that were imported from Costa Rica were sold to farmers in 2009 and 2010 at a price of Sh100 each," he said.

Oil palm takes three to four years to mature, with the current seedlings expected to be ready for processing by next year.

The number of oil palm trees planted in the region is sufficient to warrant the opening of a factory, though there has been a delay in acquisition of a processing machine.

At the peak of production, a healthy tree can produce 40 kilogrammes of oil.

Mr Emanuel Kisuya from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) station at Alupe said farmers stand to benefit a lot by growing oil palm.

He said oil palm can compete with sugar cane, depending on the category of production for each enterprise. "We have distributed seedlings to farmers who want to switch from cane growing," he said.

Mr Cheruyiot said seedlings are available at KARI stations in Kakamega, Alupe and Mumias Sugar Company. He said the crop is doing well in western Kenya, adding that more farmers have been trained and put into clusters to grow oil palm trees.

Mr Cheruiyot said that currently, processing is done at the farm level by one farmer in Nasira, Nambale District.