By Wanja Waweru

Pineapple growers in various areas of Gatundu North and South constituencies in Kiambu county lamented their inability to secure a market for their abundant crop,  after a cheaper supply of pineapples flooded the market.

Most pineapples, according to farmers, are left to rot in gardens because brokers and other buyers have ceased doing business with them as a result of dumping.

In Machakos and Kiambu Counties, where Gatundu farmers have been selling their produce, it is rumored that stolen pineapples from some of the large-scale producers are sold at throwaway rates, leaving them without markets to sell the fruits.

The farmers, led by Mwala Mara, bemoaned the sharp drop in pineapple prices that has harmed them and occasionally forced them to sell their produce below cost.

“The people who used to buy from us have stopped. The market is flooded with stolen pineapples which are giving us unfair competition. We are now selling locally at very low prices but most of the fruits are ending up rotting on the farm,” Mara said.

Out of desperation to find alternative markets, the farmers decried that unscrupulous businesspersons have taken advantage of the situation to buy the expensive fruits cheaply.

Another farmer, James Kavaiku, expressed regret that brokers who have been purchasing from them are quitting the industry because they too were unable to secure better markets for the produce.

The producers disclosed that they used to charge Ksh50 for one pineapple fruit, a price that has since dropped significantly.

Farmers urged the government to assist them in locating better domestic and international markets for their products through the trade and agriculture departments.

“We are not making any profits anymore. Our fruits are rotting in the farm and this unfair competition brought about by thieves is killing our business. It’s time the government helps us get a solution to this,” Kavaiku said.

By Wanja Waweru

A herder is tallying his loses in the midst of a devastating drought that has claimed the lives of countless animals in Kajiado County.

This is after losing 28 cows to armyworms in Murtot village in Kajiado South sub-county,

Mr. Samuel Topoika, 50, a retired police officer and the late Interior Minister George Saitoti’s trusted bodyguard for ten years observed helplessly as his animals passed away one by one.

Devastated, Mr Topoika told said he was shocked when his herdsman raised the alarm from the grazing fields.

Most herders are feeding their animals green maize stovers from the Loitoktok agricultural belt common for irrigation farming.

“I was alerted by my herder when the first three animals died. I rushed there but we could do nothing to save the animals,” he said.

Mr Topoika suspected the animals had eaten green maize stovers infested with armyworms.

A joint investigation between BBC Africa Eye and Panorama has uncovered “widespread sexual abuse on Kenyan tea farms.”

The plantations in question supply some of the UK’s most popular tea brands including PG Tips, Lipton and Sainsbury’s Red Label.

Women in the East African country say they’ve been forced into sex by their managers while working on plantations which have been owned for decades by two British companies.

BBC’s Africa Eye brings you original, investigative journalism revealing secrets and rooting out injustice in the world’s most complex and exciting continent.

BBC says more than 70 women on Kenyan tea farms, owned for years by two British companies, said they had been sexually abused by their supervisors.