By John Matava

A first attempt into Bird’s eye chilli farming has seen Shadrack Mutuku change the fortunes of his farm in Kiboko, Makueni County, making Sh30,000 in profits each month from his quarter acre piece of land.

Shadrack, like most farmers, used to cultivate vegetables such as maize, kales, spinach, capsicum and amaranth for decades, yet most of his crops ended up being destroyed by wild animals like monkeys in the region, losing up to Sh50,000  after spending Sh100,000  at each harvest. That was until he discovered Bird’s eye chilli, a variety of chilli pepper.The crop is rarely attacked by monkeys because of its defence mechanism of having a chemical that makes chillies seem hot, requires low input costs of about Sh5,000 per month and can be continuously harvested for up to eight months once it matures.

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