Miraa harvested, graded and packed against all odds

 

Wednesday
May 11,  2011

Provincial

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Stephen Mudiari | NATION Miraa exchanges hands in Laari town, Meru County in April.

By Ciugu Mwagiru ciugumwagiru@yahoo.co.uk

Posted  Tuesday, May 10 2011 at 22:00

In Summary

• Rare alele miraa at the top in the quality department, and is the preserve of the rich, followed by the giza, behind which comes kangeta, and at the bottom, the Mathenge, considered a product for the poor

Below the slopes of the benevolent blue-grey Nyambene Hills, the highly valued miraa is harvested, graded, packed and transported at all times of the day and night.

The miraa trade has in recent years been thriving in that region of Meru County, particularly since the global prices of coffee, the zone’s other major cash crop, began to plummet. That crunch resulted in farmers rapidly switching to miraa, with its minimal husbandry and much higher and more or less guaranteed returns.

Those returns have in recent times attracted moneyed Somali traders to Meru County, and there are reports that they are rapidly taking control of the trade.

Even more alarming, they are said to be acquiring miraa farms at long-term leases, leaving the local people impoverished once they have spent the tempting amounts offered for the land.

On arrival at Kangeta town, just before Maua, one immediately notices the beehive of activity in which the residents are involved in, a preamble of what to expect in Maua itself, a town known as the epicentre of miraa trade.

At the latter, there are miraa sales points all over, and even in the darkness one cannot mistake the sense of urgency as crowds concentrate on packing the bundles that will soon be loaded onto the “land jets” that transport them to the markets at daredevil speeds.

Maua has for long been reputed for being the heartbeat of the miraa trade, and the local community indulges in different aspects of the trade as if nothing else in the world matters.

There are tea bushes on the hillsides, but the importance of tea has waned over the years in Meru County in general, and today miraa is without doubt the lifeline of Chuka town.

Many residents of this town are themselves avid consumers of the twig popularly referred to as the green gold of Meru. That it matures in only seven to eight years makes miraa popular among farmers. Apart from watering, it requires little other care.

One only needs to observe the frenetic movements of those involved in miraa to understand it. On arrival at Kangeta town at night, for instance, one is instantly made aware that everything that will take place there the following day will centre on the transportation of the commodity to different markets in Nairobi, Mombasa and beyond Kenyan borders.

Speed is of essence as far as transportation of miraa is concerned. The plant can only stay fresh for less than 24 hours, hence the need to get the twigs to their destinations as soon as possible.

Events by the roadside at Kangeta market communicate this sense of urgency. Surrounding the pick-ups parked by the road are hoards of loaders, their faces dripping with sweat.

They are all working with precision as they load bundles of miraa on the vehicles. As they do so they chatter incomprehensibly in what is a veritable Tower of Babel.

In the meantime, streams of hired motorcycle boda bodas roar down from the hill towards Chuka town, hooting crazily, and with their headlights on as if they are on emergency missions.

Those missions, it turns out, are to deliver their customers bundles of miraa to loaders for onward transportation to Nairobi. The middle-aged man standing next to me is the one charged with that mission, and he is already impatient and raring to go.

Asked about the incredible speeds reached by the sparkling new miraa transport vehicles, he gawks at me as if to underscore the ridiculous nature of my question.

“Don’t you drive your own vehicle at speeds above 180kph?” he asks, and when I shake my head he quickly adds: “Well, I have to. This is work, and we drive that way in order to survive.”

Pick-up driver

Not much later, I was talking to yet another miraa pick-up driver just outside Njouni Village, on the road towards Meru National Park. Named Naphtally Kiruga, he is aged 42, and has three school-going children. A calm, soft-spoken man in normal life, he becomes transformed when he sits behind the wheel of a miraa transport vehicle.

“I often hit the 200kph mark,” he says matter-of-factly. “What would I eat if I stopped speeding? I educate my children with miraa, so I have no choice but to do my job as it should be done.”