How a grieving Busia couple turned agony into profitable venture

Isaiah Odanga explains to a customer how to utilise the pumpkin porridge in Angorom, Busia County. [Courtesy] In 2020, Isaiah Odanga and his wife lost their 10-year-old son to anaemia. Their other children were in the thick of it too. "All our children have had challenges with anaemia which makes them susceptible to malaria," he says. The many visits to the hospital were disheartening to say the least. Many would have continued with the routine and let medics do their magic at the turn of every episode. Odanga and his wife agreed to try out nutrition. In their native Busia, the one food that is synonymous with children is porridge. "We started trying out different formulations of porridge as we observed their response to the taste as well as their health," he says. They tried porridge from millet flour. So did cassava, sorghum and other formulations. And then they tried out the pumpkin one. While pumpkin was mostly consumed while boiled, a thought crossed the couple's mind; to convert pumpkin into flour for making porridge. And they did - developing a flour whose base ingredient is pumpkin flour. "Surprisingly, my children's health started improving and the frequent hospital visits reduced significantly," Odanga says. That was the couple's light bulb moment. They decided to package the flour and sell to neighbours or any other interested client. The Odangas are subsistent farmers. Majority of what they grow is for feeding the family. In an increasingly commercial world, it helps to have money. "We figured this could be our best shot at an honest living and growing wealth," he says. While the base ingredient is pumpkin, Odanga says the flour contains assorted natural herbs, 'a secret formulation' grown through agroecology. Lilian Odanga displays products from their agroecological farm in Angorom, Busia County. [Courtesy] "Healthy food is like medicine to the body; that is what we have learnt with this flour. The flour has zero synthetic chemicals in it. We don't use fertilisers neither do we use pesticides. This preserves all the natural qualities of the flour," Odanga says. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) defines agroecology as a holistic and integrated approach that seeks to optimise the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment, to achieve sustainable agriculture and food systems. The Agroecology Coalition, a worldwide syndicate, define agroecology simply as farming with nature, not against it. Odanga and his wife were initially not proponents of agroecology. They were later trained on agroecology and its benefits; thus their growing interest. "This was after we had lost our son," he says. "It opened our eyes to food as a source of healing for the many health challenges the body experiences." Odanga was raised in an era when maize and beans were the crops of choice along the western belt; which encompasses Busia as well. "Typically we grew maize and applied fertiliser at least twice during the growing season. And we sprayed pesticides whenever pesticides infested our crops." It was thus a step of faith ditching what he had been taught all his life for agroecology. Even so, he got in cautiously. Odangas own slightly over five acres of arable land. What is currently under agroecology is 1.5 acres. "We do learn new things but it is also not prudent to just trust blindly. That's why we excised the section for agroecology - to be sure that crops can actually yield without fertiliser," he notes. So far, he says, he loves what he is seeing. But also, "the taste of the food," has a zing to it. Under agroecology - other than pumpkins - Odanga is growing paw-paws, bananas, cassava, millet, and traditional vegetables. The pumpkin porridge flour sells at Sh250 per kilo. He markets via social media. So far they've grown their client base beyond their Angorom neighbourhood in Busia County as they service orders from as far as Eldoret, Mombasa and Nairobi. "My prayer is that the government would make it easy for entrepreneurial farmers like me to sell beyond Kenya and bring in more revenue," he says. One of the stumbling blocks he faces is lack of official certification for agroecological products, "Which would increase the product's value; putting into consideration the meticulous nature of growing food under principles of agroecology." He also says that farmers like him do not have the wherewithal to access Kenya Bureau of Standards(KEBS) Quality stickers. A 2025 Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) study concluded that it is impossible to state exact volumes and accompanying economic value trade of agroecological products across East African Community (EAC) borders. Kenya has a national agroecology strategy (2024-2033) which promotes sustainable food systems to ensure food security and nutrition, climate-resilient livelihoods, and social inclusion for all. From a trade perspective, the strategy aims at strengthening mechanisms for the production, distribution and use of locally produced agroecological inputs. According to Moraa Ratemo, an environment scientist and agroecology expert with Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM), since agriculture is a devolved function, county governments should grab the opportunity to organise their farmers in agroecology to form cooperatives through which they can trade across the border at premium prices. In a good month Odanga sells 150 kilos of pumpkin flour. To ramp up their profits, the Odangas have developed two other products that they are selling: Roasted pumpkin seeds and flour from pumpkin seeds.

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