Farmers in the North Rift have embraced passion fruit growing as an alternative to maize.

The switch is partly due to the skyrocketing cost of maize production, and will compound fears of a major grains shortage this year.

Mrs Diana Lagat is one such farmer, who has seen the cost of fertiliser lock her out of commercial maize farming this season. In fact, she has cultivated only an acre of maize crop - enough to feed her family - and instead toyed with the idea of increasing her passion fruit acreage.

Her passion for the fruit illustrates a dramatic shift away from the traditional wheat and maize farming that has become synonymous with the Kenya's breadbasket of North Rift.

A farmer from Kaptuktuk Village located in the outskirts of Eldoret town, Mrs Lagat currently has 200 passion fruit trees on a quarter acre piece of land. Her crop is the traditional purple passion fruit (Passiflora f. edulis).

"I had not considered growing passion fruit as an investment (on a commercial scale), but since fertiliser prices more than doubled, I decided not to grow for Maize for the market this year.

"You can see I have just planted enough for home consumption. I plan to increase the acreage under the fruit later this year," said Mrs Lagat, who planted the fruit in June last year and had her first harvest last month.

Due to its relatively fast maturity period and high market value, the passion fruit has become an attractive cash crop for small scale farmers in the region, especially in Uasin Gishu, Keiyo and Marakwet districts.

The crop matures inside nine months, and can be harvested four times a year, depending on the availability of rain or irrigation water. The traditional purple variety has a lifespan of between three to three and half years, whereas the yellow variety can last for close to six years.

Early last year, researchers at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) announced that they had developed six new varieties of passion fruit that are high yielding and disease resistant. This came to the rescue of farmers like Mrs Lagat, who live in areas where traditional cash crops are no longer fetching good money.

With the new varieties, farmers can harvest 50 tonnes of passion fruit per hectare, instead of between 20 and 25 tonnes from the same acreage. Disease and pests are the major challenges Mrs Lagat has had to contend with in her first attempt at horticulture.

When we visited her, we found her spraying her crop; some had their leaves turning yellow. She explained that a team from Kari had taken soil samples to determine the disease afflicting her fruits.

To increase her earnings, Mrs Lagat is adding value to her produce by making juice, instead of just selling the fruits. From two kilos of passion fruit, she makes five litres of juice that sells for Sh250, compared to Sh100 she could have earned by selling the fruits.

A kilo of passion fruit currently retails at Sh50 in the Eldoret Municipal Market. Unfortunately, with the cost of a single seedling at between Sh15 and Sh20, most farmers have been using seeds from mature fruits, thus compromising on productivity and the possibility of disease transmission.

Purple and yellow passion fruits are the two major species cultivated for commercial purposes in the country. Passion fruits fetch a good market in Britain and the European Union, while the Middle East is also emerging as an option. Also, in the North Rift, there is a ready market for the crop, and farmers have not been able to meet the ever rising demand.

"I sell the produce in town, and within the locality. Many people are coming from Uganda to buy the fruits, so there is no worry about where I would sell the harvest," Mrs Lagat explained.

Mr Barnabas Kiptum of Horticultural Crops Development Authority (HCDA), argues that for a sustainable passion fruit industry, there is need to supply clean planting material, and maintain the necessary crop practices to protect the crop against pests and diseases.

He observes that the bulk of the passion fruit from the North Rift is goes to Kampala, Uganda, but some end up with exporters in Nairobi, as well as processors or in local markets, supermarkets and hotels for juice making.

"We are encouraging the establishment and registration of fruit tree nurseries to supply clean grafted planting material of desired varieties."