Baringo County to break the poverty cycle with aloe Vera

For long regarded as an irritant shrub, the aloe plant is turning into a route out of poverty for residents of the arid Baringo County.
Aloe sap’s growing commercial appeal in the world market has attracted the interest of the residents with help from the government and other partners. The county has been sleeping on a gold mine for many years, but now they have something to boast of.The project has a website, http://www.baringoaloe.org, through which customers from around the world can contact them.
The project was revived three years ago after it kicked up a storm on establishment in 2004 with a Sh10.5 million grant from the European Union. Then, the local community protested that it was being run by foreigners.
Despite fears on revival that the aloe produced in the area was not enough to support the venture; farmers are now rushing to domesticate aloe because of its high economic value.
The project is being touted as a solution to poverty in semi-arid areas such as Baringo, Laikipia, Koibatek, Mogotio, Marigat, Keiyo, Marakwet, East Pokot, and Rongai districts. An estimated 10,000 hectares of land have been put under the plant.
Aloe’s juice is boiled leaving a dry substance that is used to make soap and other products. The price of aloe sap has increased from Sh35 to Sh50 per litre.
Upon payment on delivery. Farmers can now buy basic commodities like sugar without a lot of hustles. According to the Kenya Forest Research Institute (Kefri),its estimated that Sh6 million is spent on aloe research each year. It can therefore be said that Aloe is a resource with economic value.
Baringo Aloe Bio-enterprise hopes to produce 10,000 tonnes of aloe in a year’s time given that 1,000 litres of aloe sap is processed at the factory each day though its capacity is limited by manual processes.
Demand
The plant also has nutritional value besides being an important component for both pharmaceuticals and cosmetic industries, with this there’s high demand for the product.
The leaves are applied to wounds to assist healing. Its sap is drunk as an appetizer.
Diluted leaf sap is drunk as a cure for malaria, typhoid fever, diarrhea, oedema, swollen diaphragm, nose bleeding, headache, pneumonia, chest pain and as a disinfectant.
The sap is also applied in eyes to cure conjunctivitis and nipples to wean children. The basal parts of the leaves are used in the fermentation of local beer. The leaves are pounded and added to drinking water for preventing or treating coccidiosis and Newcastle disease in poultry.
Two products from aloe can be used commercially in the manufacture of medicinal and cosmetic preparations.
One is the gel from the centre of the leaf, and the other is the exudates from longitudinal vessels situated at the outer sides of the vascular bundles of the leaves.
The plant can grow in poor soils and tolerates drought, making it invaluable in rangelands.
Although farmers are banned from harvesting wild aloe under a 1986 presidential decree, increasing commercial value has exposed the species to over-exploitation.