Residents brave harsh heat to sell honey by the road

By ALEX KIPROTICH

Baringo County: As visitors savour the beauty of the central Rift, one thing stands out all along the Nakuru-Marigat-Kabarnet road. At every trading centre along the 142km stretch, motorists are greeted with shouts of “Asali! Asali” as they slow down at the bumps.

Women with children strapped to their backs, men in multi-coloured vests and young girls with lesos tied loosely around their waists surge forward to the windows of vehicles, clutching bottles filled with honey.

The residents of this area have mastered the language of persuasion and within a few seconds of coming into contact with drivers and passengers, they quickly manage to sell their merchandise and you will notice their radiant smiles as they fold the money and quickly slip it into their tattered pockets or purses.

These honey traders can be found in all the centres along the road starting from the Eldama Ravine junction, all the way to Kasoiyo near Kabarnet. 

Honey is the lifeline of the thousands of people living in the arid and semi-arid parts of Koibatek and Baringo districts. Every morning, hundreds of people pitch tent along the road hoping to put food on their tables at the end of the day.

The resilient mothers spend the day under the scorching sun clutching the 100 to 500ml bottles filled with raw honey.

The bottles come in all shapes  and some still bear the labels of their original contents, which could include acaricides, pesticides, wines, spirits or juice.

Mary Kipkech is among the hundreds whose lives depend on this roadside trade. Every day she walks five kilometres from her home in Radat to the centre to hawk honey.

“This is our livelihood. You either spend the whole day along the road or let your children sleep on empty stomachs,” she says.

Kipkech, a mother of 12, says they depend on the honey for school fees and basic needs.

She says given the harsh climatic condition of the region, residents have no other means of survival and have had to learn the art of marketing the honey to passers-by.

“The environment cannot allow any other farming activity apart from bee-keeping and small scale pastoralism,” she says. For the last 20 years, Kipkech has been waking up at dawn to ready her children for school before heading to Radat centre where she hawks honey the whole day.

“Despite all the challenges, I have managed to educate my children using proceeds from the honey,” she says.

Symon Yegon, a retired chief who has more than 20 beehives, says his village harvests up to four tonnes of honey every four months but lacks a ready market. “Honey is our livelihood and there is no single home without a beehive,” he says.

Each homestead has at least ten traditional beehives, with some owning as many as 100.

Yegon says honey is harvested three times a year – in April, August and December. Four tonnes are harvested every season, and more than ten tonnes yearly, but there is no available market.

“Residents are frustrated and that is why they resort to selling the honey to motorists and travellers for less than it actually costs,” he says.

Margaret Ruto says she spends 14 hours daily along the road selling honey.

Charcoal burning

Mrs Ruto, who is a mother of three, says their options are limited and she cannot afford to stay at home and especially with the food crisis and rising cost of living.

“We have to be on the road very early in the morning to get customers,” she says. And sometimes, she goes home empty-handed even after a whole day on the road. “We are not always lucky to find customers because so many of us rely on the same passers-by,” she says.

A 100ml bottle of honey goes for Sh100, while the 200ml bottle is sold for Sh250. On a good day, she takes home Sh1,000.

But sometimes, when there is plenty of honey harvested, the traders are forced to sell for less.

“We do not fix prices because sometimes we have nothing and we have to take what the customer offers,” says Dickson Keittany, another trader.

Keittany says most women spend their time hawking the honey along the roads while men take up charcoal burning to supplement the family income.

The Radat Member of the County Assembly Geoffrey Chelal has called on the county government to build honey-processing factories in the region to tap the wasted resource.

Chelal says the region is capable of producing more than 15 tonnes of honey annually but there is no ready market for the produce.