NAIROBI, Kenya — In the effort to make Kenya the market leader in African Bird’s Eye (ABE) chili, Fintrac is working with farmers and linking them to processors and exporters as demand for chili contin ues to rise.

Through the USAIDfunded Kenya Horticultural Development Program (KHDP), Fintrac started promoting ABE chili because it is a hardy, highyielding crop with low production costs, high returns, and enormous growth potential for smallholders, particularly those located in marginal production areas. In 2004, Fintrac started working with a handful of farmers who started supplying ABE chili to two export processors, Mace Foods and Equator Products. Today, ABE chili is well known throughout Kenya as a cash crop.

Margaret Komen, the managing director of Mace Foods has seen the growth from the begin ning. “It’s moved forward very well. We’ve really solved problems of how to produce it, and now it’s about meeting volume,” Komen said. Mace Foods averages about 40 metric tons per year but Komen says market demand is three or four times more. “Without the support of KHDP we would not be close to 40 metric tons,” Komen said.

As demand increased, more and more farmers received Fintrac training with the result that now more than 2,000 farmers in western, eastern and coastal Kenya are supplying highquality chilies to these local processors for processing and export. By early 2008, the chili program is expectedtoinvolve5,000 small farmers.

Through technical assistance and training, Fintrac has helped ABE chili growers triple yields per hectare and has reduced production costs from KSh 40 to KSh 30 per kilogram.

Josiah Mwatela, a farmer in Coast Province receiving Fintrac technical assistance, started growing ABE chili and quickly saw the crop’s potential. In one year, from 300 plants, Mwatela earned $1,429 from selling chilies to Mace Foods. “Now I am able to buy food, clothing and medical treatments for my family,” Mwatela said.

Through KHDP, Fintrac is working in Central, Coast, Eastern, Nyanza, Rift Valley and Western provinces to increase incomes through smallholder production and employment in the horticulture industry. The program is working with more than 15,000 members of 500 small holder groups in conjunction with more than 50 private and publicsector alliance partners.