How teacher built mega pixie farm

The farmer started out in 1976 when he was a newly employed teacher. Back then, he would intercrop his trees with maize and pigeon peas. Later, he phased out the other crops. He says hard work was ingrained in him by his father, a church elder and a man of military mien.
It is the same values Mwaka says he has striven to pass to his six children to kill dependency.
He would juggle school work and his farm, always waking up his sons at 3am to go and till the farm using oxen-pulled ploughs under the light of lanterns.
"They might have thought I was a bother to them but today they have seen the fruit of hard work," says the farmer who has created a fruit empire in Ukambani worth tens of millions of shillings.

Allure of farm money

Mr Mwaka says his routine of tending to his trees before leaving for school put him at loggerheads with education inspectors because oftentimes he would arrive late, even when he was the teacher on duty.
By then, he had started raking in a tidy sum of money from his venture and the allure of farm money made him somehow lax in schoolwork.
He remembers arriving at school late one morning only to find education inspectors at the parade. He was immediately summoned to the head teacher's office and received a tongue-lashing.
"But I told them I could not arrive early as I wanted. I told them I needed first to improve my home's score however much I wanted to improve the school's mean score," says the old man with a smile.

The beauty with the fruits, Mwaka says, is that they can be let to stay on the trees when ripe for even two months without going bad as he waits for prices to stabilise. The more they stay on trees, the sweeter they get.

Works with experts

Once every week, he seeks services of experts who visit to offer technical support on pest control and other infestations. He has 10 casual workers who are paid either daily or weekly.
Like other businesses, his venture has also taken a toll from Covid-19 with prices plummeting to lows of Sh30 a kilo for pixie and Sh18 for oranges from Sh30. However, Mwaka, a disciplinarian, is not moved by easy money from those who venture into his farm to buy the produce. Often times he berates brokers who sneak in with ridiculous prices. For him, farm gate price is strictly Sh100.
"A farmer must know his worth. Farming is challenging therefore a farmer should be able to earn maximum benefits," he points out, adding that middlemen take advantage of farmers' lack of unity to exploit them.
So how has he benefited from his venture? "My family is stable and they do not lack anything. All my six children went up to university from the proceeds of the farm...it is satisfying."
At 71, Mwaka is not slowing down. He is still planting more pixie trees with his eyes now trained on East Africa, European and Asian market. And this looks possible for the farmer whose farm was last year certified by Global GAP and issued with a certificate of export.