Coastal hotels’ scramble for ‘makuti’ roofs creates millionaire farmers

BY BOB KOIGI

Palm branches, commonly called makuti, are fast rising as a symbol of prestige and a cultural attraction in coastal hotels.

Makuti, long believed to be a cheap alternative to expensive roofing materials, is now fetching high prices, with five-star hotels and villas willing to dish out millions for it.

Business has been brisk, especially among the few remaining coconut farmers who stuck to the crop as returns dwindled.

In the 80s and early 90s when coconut farmers were making decent profits, palm branches littered homesteads as few had use for them.

Cooling effect

Those who did not have coconut trees would pick them from neighbours free of charge. The branches come in handy at the Coast because they bring a cooling effect in houses.

Even when the commercialisation of palms for roofing picked up, no one took it seriously as the branches were easily available.

But now, with a dwindling number of coconut trees and the fast pace at which cottages, villages and hotels with an African design are emerging, the palm trade has picked up and is fetching a premium due to the scarcity of makuti.

In the 90s a head load of palm branches cost Sh100. Mombasa residents like Dena Kajembe recall building a two-roomed makuti-thatched house with mud walls at Sh10,000, with the palms costing Sh2,000.

In the last decade, however, the cost of palm branches has risen 10-fold.

“My son Hiram built a similar house recently and it cost him Sh50,000, with the makuti taking up Sh20,000 of the cost,” said Kajembe, who was among the thousands of farmers who uprooted coconut trees for their poor returns.

“[Palm branches] have been in such demand that you are lucky if you get them. Farmers and traders are selling them to big hotels who buy them at a higher price,” added Hiram.

Coastal hotels looking for unique African designs turned to palm trees in droves. The obsession with makuti has become so entrenched that some hotels report spending between Sh1.5 million and Sh3 million on buying and designing makuti roofing alone.

More authentic

“We employ locals who know how to identify palm fronds from the best coconut trees, and since they have become scarce, we have to spend a lot to buy them, plus pay for designers who know how to position them in a unique way on roofs.

“Tourists identify palm-roofed hotels as offering a more authentic sense of Mombasa and Africa, so if you hope to draw them to your hotel, you have to spend on the makuti roofing,” says Ahmed Kisa, the owner of Whitefelt International Hotel in Mombasa.

And with the business turning some farmers into millionaires,  coconut farming has become more popular, but not so much for its fruit, but for the branches.

Rajib Kawawa is one such millionaire farmer who chanced on the palm trade by luck.

Having nothing else to grow on his land and knowing how labour-intensive any other crop would be to grow, he let the coconut trees stay.

“I was selling the coconuts so cheaply, at between Sh3 and Sh5, since there were many others who were also in the trade. But then hotels started using makuti roofing, and lorries would come right into our farms begging to buy our palms,” he said.

The palm fronds became so popular that each was fetching Sh100. Kawawa distributed about 1,000 fronds a week from his one-acre piece of land.  He used the proceeds from the venture to start a night club.

Palm branches are harvested and dried, and then the upper ends are woven around a stick two-feet long — this sheaf is called a kuti. A small interwoven branch that resembles a doormat now costs Sh50, up from Sh5 just four years ago.

— FarmBiz Africa