How a Busia Woman is Changing the Way We Eat
How a Busia Woman is Changing the Way We Eat
There is a unique farmer/food manufacturer at Osia village, Teso South, who is transforming the landscape of income generation from subsistence farming through “Pawa cakes”.
Pacilisa Wanyonyi hails from Busia County in the village of Osia and seems to have mastered an entirely different answer to the quest for better financial living and managing the effects of pollution on human health.
Farming Conditions in Busia
Farmers in Busia, like some other parts of Kenya, live in a potentially “hostile” agricultural environment for farming of cash-crops. Some of the common cash crops grown in Kenya like coffee, tea, sugarcane, maize, and wheat cannot be grown in Busia County. Farmers practice mostly subsistence crop farming growing finger millet, cassava, sorghum, peanuts, and simsim. These crops are basically traditional food crops that are consumed in the homes with little excess hardly sufficient to sell and provide the much-needed cash for expenses such as school fees.
According to Pacilisa, nowadays much of the processed and packaged foods we buy from shops and consume pollutes our bodies. They cause us to fall sick often. When we fall sick we go to the hospital and are given drugs; which though they treat the diseases they don’t manage to clean our blood system of these food pollutants. Often the drugs are themselves polluting our bodies. Mrs. Wanyonyi advises that we can relieve ourselves of this vicious body pollution cycle by eating traditionally produced foods in their natural form.
That is why much research and time is being expended in seeking cheaper yet safer sources of energy with the least environmental degradation and less harm to humanity; otherwise called green energy. Such alternative energy sources being explored include solar, wind, and vehicles run by electricity.
Pacilisa is no ordinary farmer, she is a pioneering entrepreneur in the manufacture of food products whose raw materials are mainly traditional crops. The source raw materials for her foods include Wimbi (Finger millet), Mtama (Sorghum) Mhogo (Cassava), Nduma (Arrow roots); whose formula is mixed with varieties of green vegetables.
Although the traditional home preparation and cooking of these foodstuffs does not have much variety in terms of recipes, it has sustainable nutrition. A typical meal consists mainly of Ugali (fresh soft cake) served with boiled green vegetables, green gram, beans, meat, fish, sour milk, or mushrooms.
The main dish for breakfast is porridge which is prepared as a homogeneous soft or thick paste with flavors of plain, sour, or with milk (added). While these dishes are nutritious and very popular in Western Kenya, they are mainly only available and served in homes or in hotels in the region. In the other parts of Kenya, their main dish is the non-nutritious maize meal.
Pacilisa has risen to the challenge to fill this gap in the market by producing traditional foodstuffs in ready-to-eat form and available to a wider group of consumers throughout all seasons.
Launch of KALRO Busia Project
The type of food production engaged by Pacilisa is called “value addition”. It has been pioneered by researchers at Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO).
In 2007 Pacilisa Wanyonyi’s group called Muhula Women Group was among the pioneers engaged in the KALRO project. Initially, they were recruited to participate in the research on the variety and suitability of finger millet to be grown in the dry areas of Western Kenya.
Selected members of the group were provided with several seed varieties of Wimbi and vegetables to plant in their farms. The type of different varieties they were given to plant included: Ohale, Gulu-E, V-15, PP-24 plus the local varieties. During the first planting season Pacilisa says, she harvested 4 bags type V-I5 on one-acre farm she had allocated for the project. It was later identified that type V-15 was the most suited for that area.
After engaging the group for several planting seasons, in 2020 KALRO turned to the second phase of the project. That was training the groups on how to maximize productivity and profitability from farming dry-land crops. This was through the application of value addition on traditional foods. Benard Lusigi of The Standard Newspaper wrote about Value Addition after the Kakamega Mkulima Expo. He interviewed Agnes Kwazu, a food nutritionist and value addition scientist from KALRO,
“farmers growing traditional foods do not benefit from the agricultural value chain.”
Therefore KALRO came up with the project to improve their income.
Pacilisa says KALRO has also sponsored them to attend and participate in trade fairs to display their technology and products in various forums including:
2017 – Arusha Tanzania at Selga hotel
2017 – Field day at Busia
2018 – ILRI Nairobi for 3 days where according to Pacilisa, President Uhuru Kenyatta, then a Minister, while touring the fair tasted and liked her Wimbi cakes
Feb 2021 – Kakamega Mkulima Expo after which she featured in the Standard newspaper story.
Busia - Several training programs at Amukura Institute for Agriculture
New Production Facility
For the production and factory facility, Pacilisa has constructed a full-fledged bakery in her compound with two jikos. She has also acquired a cake baking machine. However, she says she operates on a tight budget and desires capital to buy a dough mixer and a bigger noodling machine.
Previously, she has taken a loan and bought a motorcycle to use to distribute her Pawa bakery products. She has employed 22-year-old Tom Nyongesa as her salesman. She has so far cleared half of the loan. The retailers of her products are spread over a large area at Adungosi, Roadblock (Busia), Kisoko, Chakol Girls High School area; and Our lady of Mercy area in Busia.
Her products line include: Mandazi, crackle (Chevda), crisps, doughnuts, cookies, cakes, bread, biscuits, busera and brown ugali. All are made using local grains and vegetables.
Is this business tough? Pacilisa, an early retirement teacher due to health, concedes that the business is good, even though she faces some challenges. There are times when she experiences shortages of millet during long droughts. Also, she is still not comfortable with the shelf life of the products. She hopes to find a preservative that will preserve her products for a maximum extended time.
Meanwhile, Pacilisa Wanyonyi is not complaining. She says her business has enabled her to build a bakery and a decent house. Also, she is educating her children from the proceedings. Her firstborn Duncan Okuro is studying Bacher or Science in Criminology at Egerton University. She says he is also a model. The second-born Anita studied Biotechnology and is a graduate of at Bukura Institute of Technology. The other three children are still in school.
Her main challenge is getting the machines and Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) certifications for her value addition products. Besides being a manufacturer, Pacilisa is now a resource trainer. Due to her background as an educator, she now provides training in value addition to individuals and groups.