Amiran Kenya: Leading the Way in Agricultural Innovation and Quality Farming Solutions

Year in, year out they have been known for consistency; always offering farmers quality inputs and solid farming information while walking with them to feed the nation. Started as a small shop in 1963, Amiran Kenya Ltd has been a driving force behind the horticulture and floriculture industries in Kenya and throughout East Africa. It is a part of the Balton CP group of companies headquartered in the United Kingdom and spread throughout Africa and Israel.

According to Timothy Munywoki, a Senior Agronomist who deals with technical and product development at Amiran Kenya, they started with greenhouses and it was expanded into a one-stop-shop for complete farming solutions in all fields. Over the years they expanded their activities and today they are leaders in fertilizers, Seeds, pesticides, greenhouses, drip irrigation, and recently they have introduced Biogas.

“Amiran has a holistic approach whereby a farmer can get everything they need from us. We give top quality agricultural inputs that are field-proven to help reduce farming risks through crop improvement to ensure maximum yields,” he adds.

Timothy Munywoki, a Senior Agronomist at Amiran Kenya in their Nairobi office. 

In Timothy’s words, “Agriculture is one of the key pillars of the Kenyan economy and also one of the government's four agendas, which is food security.”  Amiran Kenya is playing its part to ensure Kenya has enough food without relying on imports by chipping in with modern technology that improves food production.

A 2015 report by the World Bank on Kenya Agricultural Risk Assessment by Stephen D’Alessandro, Jorge Caballero, Simon Simpkin, and John Lichte says that despite highly variable growth rates, agriculture remains a crucial backbone of Kenya’s economy. The sector directly accounts for more than one-quarter of the gross domestic product (GDP), 70 percent of rural jobs, 65 percent of exports, and 60 percent of foreign exchange earnings. Consequently, agriculture is vital to Kenya’s economic growth, national food security, and poverty reduction. Yet Kenya’s reliance on smallholder, rain-fed agriculture and its high poverty rates render the country particularly vulnerable to climate risks. 

Amiran Kenya wants to ensure a farmer can produce more for less by initiating things like drip irrigation, good hybrid seeds, and a good fertilizer.  This ensures farmers are able to produce double yield while bridging the gap of import reliance. 

Picture courtesy of Amiran Kenya.

According to Timothy, finding a market for farmers for their double yield is a niche they haven't quite exploited because they have a different group of farmers on their portfolio. Amiran Kenya has professional farmers who have been conducting farming as a business for years.

“Professional farmers who are mostly large scale don’t need help in finding a market. We also have those who have never done any farming, mostly small-scale farmers. We train them, but they look for a way to sell their produce. This is something we may have to look into,” he says.

Kenya needs to embrace dryland farming and the local farmers cannot achieve this on their own, this is according to Timothy. “They need help from the national governments, private sector, and NGOs to build things like water pans, modern technology for water harvesting, and install water drips. We need to teach farmers how to use less water in a big area so they stop relying so much on rainfall.” He adds.  

Amiran Kenya works closely with agro vets who are partners and major distributors and in charge of their products. The company has over 600 employees in different departments like the agro division, administration & operations, finance, Seeds, Irrigation, and Greenhouse departments respectively.

Amiran Kenya field agronomist conducting a training. Picture courtesy of Amiran Kenya.

According to Timothy, climatic change is a major challenge that interferes with the rain pattern and their business. Farmers have been getting irregular rain patterns that aren't sufficient and affect a large percentage of them who are relying on rain-fed agriculture. 

“This has resulted in shrinking of the hectares under production. At the end of the day we have farmers abandoning farming, which means we sell less hence losing business,” he says.

Amiran Kenya also faces stiff competition from cheap products from China. Most Kenyan farmers are not as concerned with the quality of their farm inputs as they go for cheap products that are not sustainable.

“To get over the competition we have been doing campaigns through social media, radio, and television informing farmers on the importance of high-quality farming products to their overall yields.  Apart from that, we have built a brand, and farmers who we started with trust us to sell them original high-quality products,” Timothy says. 

According to Timothy, no matter how cheap other products are, their loyal customers still come to them. Apart from selling farmers those products, they also walk with farmers to ensure they are doing great and if they are facing any challenges they work closely to resolve them.

The future for Amiran Kenya is bright as they are looking to invest more in solutions to fit the farmers. Recently they introduced biogas for farmers that recycle their waste for fire.  Organic farming is the future and they have been introducing it to farmers. 

“People want safe food with low chemical residue and it’s an area we are willing to develop from time to time. Initially, a lot of farmers didn't know what organic farming was but as time goes by they have started appreciating it.  For now, I can say we have achieved a lot. Our key focus will continue to be farmers,” says Timothy finally.