Gideon Maina, a farmer, owns an Ndeka Virgin Sunflower Cooking oil business. Sunflowers grow in areas with thin rainfall, with a slightly acidic soil with pH of between 6.0 and 7.5.
There are several varieties of Sunflower such as Sunbeam, Mammoth, Autumn Beauty, Teady Bear and Kenya Fedha.
Sunflowers are planted in fine tilted soil with narrow furrows where seeds are planted. The sunflower outgrows the weeds so additional weeding is not that required. "You must synchronise the sowing with the rain season so that as the crop matures, there will be little rainfall to end up with good produce," says Maina.
If the plant is ready for harvest, its head will turn brown at the back. It only happens 30 to 45 days after the bloom. The seeds must be correctly dried and cleaned carefully before milling. Maina mills the seeds using a machine that helps remove its husks. After milling, the seeds will now become a thick paste, these will be put in an oil extractor.
"It takes 10kg of the seeds to produce two litres of the pure oil. I ensure that I have up to 100 litres of milled oil at any time in my shop, but when demand rises, I hire six workers to process more," says Maina. "I add no chemical in the oil, the reason I have christened it virgin." Maina retails his products in five packages from half a litre up to five litres.
Looking back, Maina's journey was not a so-smooth ride until sunflowers helped him from being a sunflower grower to a seller of its seeds and now he has begun to crush sunflower seeds to extract oil and this allow him to make more money.
Margaret Gitau, agribusiness officer with The Subukia Forum says sunflower oil is a high value product, it is in demand and is still rising business because people choose to use it to steer away from cooking fat.
