Hard times for Kenya's Khat farmers‏

By Magdalene Mukami

MERU, Kenya

 On the way to Maua town in Kenya's Meru County, one is greeted by hundreds, if not thousands, of lush Khat trees that carpet the area.

The trees hide palatial homes built from the once-thriving Khat business.

"Before the United Kingdom banned Khat, I could sell a kilo for 800 Kenyan shillings [roughly $8.70] because my farm produces some of the best Khat you can get in Meru," Isaac Mwenda Mikwa, 35, told The Anadolu Agency while giving a tour of his vast farm in Maua, located more than 360km from capital Nairobi.

"Now things are bad. If I go to the market, I may sell a kilo [of Khat] for 100 Kenyan shillings [roughly $1.10]. So we have to work extra hard if we want to live," said the father of three.

Britain banned Khat, referred to locally as "miraa," in June of 2014 as a "class C" drug, saying the plant was found to contain natural ingredients thought to be detrimental to the human body.

Now anyone found in possession of the stimulant can be slapped with a 60-pound fine, while Khat suppliers risk 14-year jail terms.

Several months later, the ban remains a hot potato in Meru County, home to more than 1.3 million Kenyans, a majority of whom depend entirely on the Khat business.

Meru is considered the backbone of the Khat business in the East African country.

Mikwa used to make a fortune on Khat. He says that, unlike other crops, Khat trees can be harvested monthly.

"From this field alone I can harvest about 20kg of Khat in one day," he told AA, pointing to a section of his sprawling farm.

Mikwa said most of the Khat trees in the area were planted by his father in the 1940s.

"As the trees matured over the years, my father used the money he had acquired from the business to feed and educate us," he said.

Mikwa insists that chewing Khat is not physically harmful.

"Our grandparents chewed Khat," he said. "We chew Khat. It has never affected us in any way."

He suggested that problems arise when people mixed Khat with other drugs.

Mikwa went on to assert that Khat was closely associated with plants known for boosting the body's immune system.

"Sometimes we use Khat medicinally," he said. "It is almost impossible to find a Khat user suffering from certain diseases like Malaria and Diarrhea."

In 2013, the National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) went to court to ban the growing and use of Khat in Kenya.

But the high court ruled in favor of Meru County residents, declaring that Khat was "not a drug."

Nightmare

For once-prosperous Khat farmers like Mikwa, however, the British ban came as a blow.

"This ban has really affected us. Now we're trying to find markets in other countries, like Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda," he told AA.

So far, he added, business in the East African Community had been very good.

"But it could never match the batch that we used to send to the U.K.," Mikwa said. "They used to import Khat in large quantities. The industry had employed so many people who have now been left without work."

Khat exports to the U.K. used to fetch Kenya around $24 million annually.

Mikwa urged London to reconsider the ban "so that we can put our children through school."

Kendi Mberia, a 32-year-old mother of two, echoed these sentiments.

"I have a daughter at Moi University. But since the [U.K.'s Khat] ban, it has been hard for me to raise school tuition fees," she told AA.

"Miraa [Khat] is what has educated most of us," Mberia said.

She added: "Now I'm gathering some Khat to sell. Before, I wouldn't be working in the afternoon – I would be taking care of my kids and my livestock."