The Buroti Menace

[upepo]

A recent visit to rongai in Nakuru my home county... The ghosts of buroti maguta maguta the kikuyu cash cow has invaded the little town that once known for flower export ,maize and beans production.. In my village alone near a very small shoping centre i know of more than 30 acres now devided into 50by 100...

The same demons landed in kilifi, out of all places they chose land near the riverbanks of Galana. They cut the land in tiny pieces and sold to speculators. The once arable fertile land, the Mesopotamia of kenya is devided into small pieces, left bare as their buyers sit in nairobi and gulf waiting for them to appreciate.

The demons are now shamelessly eyeing Nyandarua and Highlands trying to convince farmers how silly is potato and milk production. They will show how many millions they can make surrendering several acres, to erect a gorofa for rentals.

By the time tunagutuka, even in the villages watakuwa wanasubiri lorry ya mboga na waru kutoka nchi jirani.... I don't for how long the government is going to be silent, i dont know what exactly they are wayting to declare some places agricultural zones and come up with the size of land below which it cannot be reduced.... Tondu my friends we are sinking, impoverishing and starving the future.

 

[Amooti]

A few years ago I visited a relative in Othayas KNH before it became Mwai kibaki referral. I dropped his wife and son a few kilometers from the hospital after visiting hours. I recently went to visit his home and over a kilometer from the hospital almost all the land has been converted to plots. Yes the demand is there but to me it looked like a blink of an eye.

I met one of the guys who had sold to plots from his 3 acres and he there is no need for him to continue farming getting almost nothing from tea, yet a plot can give him enough money, one time, than he could get from the whole farm in 10 years. He's one of the lucky ones, after selling, he also built his own rentals and he's getting over 60k per month. And he's still farming on the rest and he's also constructing some more units that will raise his rental income to over 140k at 80% occupancy.
Most might dismiss this but I know no one in the whole of Othaya is making that kind of money from farming. No one.