From rotting mangoes to renewed hope: Makueni farmers find relief in fruit fly traps

In the mango orchards of Makueni, the sweet scent of ripening fruit once carried a bitter aftertaste of despair. For years, farmers watched helplessly as fruit flies invaded their trees, leaving behind black-spotted mangoes that no buyer wanted.

“It was very painful for us,” recalls Rose Mulu, a small-scale farmer from Muvau/Kikumini Ward. “We sprayed so many chemicals, but still the fruits rotted. We would spend money only to end up with spoiled mangoes.”

For Rose and many like her, every fruit fly infestation meant not just wasted fruit, but crushed dreams — of school fees unpaid, hospital bills piling up, and empty markets. Yet today, a simple invention is bringing relief and restoring hope: pheromone fruit fly traps.

“When we started using the traps, everything changed,” Rose says with a smile. “We use fewer chemicals, the mangoes look cleaner, and my income has gone up by almost 50 percent.”

Each trap, costing just KSh250, is baited to lure male fruit flies, stopping them from breeding and breaking the cycle of infestation. Four traps per acre are enough. For farmers who once poured money into pesticides with little success, the solution feels nothing short of revolutionary.

For Jackson Mutinda, a young farmer with big dreams, the traps mean more than saving mangoes. They mean freedom to diversify.

“Farming has been a great help,” he says. “With fewer losses, I’ve been able to keep goats and try out other crops. If you are young and want to make money, you must be strong. Farming is one way.”

Across Makueni, stories like Jackson’s and Rose’s are spreading. Farmers speak with renewed energy about their orchards, hopeful again that mangoes from this county will not just fill local markets but also reach supermarket shelves abroad.

“I can dream again,” says Gibson Wambua, who grows mangoes and oranges. “We’ve been trained to use organic fertilisers and these traps. Now our harvest is better, and we can imagine bigger markets for our fruit.”

The project, spearheaded by Trademark Africa with support from the European Union, has distributed 15,000 traps to mango growers in Makueni.

The program is also training farmers on international standards, linking them to exporters, and investing in hot water treatment facilities at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

“Makueni produces 245,000 metric tonnes of mangoes annually, yet farmers lose nearly half of that to pests. By reducing these losses and improving quality, farmers can boost their incomes and revive access to the lucrative EU market, which has been closed to Kenyan mangoes since 2003,” says Liliane Mwai-Degwa, Trademark Africa’s country director

Agronomists say the impact is dramatic. “If installed properly, the traps ensure about 90 percent of fruits meet export quality,” explains Simon Kiio Kyuli of VAT Limited. “Unlike spraying, they don’t leave harmful chemical residues, which have hurt Kenya’s reputation abroad.”

Beyond the policies and trade deals, however, it is the smallholder farmers who feel the change most deeply. “We used to lose hope,” says Rose. “Now, when I look at my orchard, I see healthy fruits and I know I can sell them. That means I can take care of my family.”

As Makueni becomes the first county to adopt an agroecology policy, experts say it signals a new future for farming — one that is safer, more sustainable, and farmer-driven.

“We are reducing pests without poisoning our environment,” says Dr. Nehemiah Mihindo of the Effective IPM Association. “This is the future of farming.”

And for the farmers of Makueni, that future feels closer than ever. Every trap hung on a tree is more than just a tool. It is a symbol of resilience, of lessons learned the hard way, and of a community daring to believe once again in the promise of their mangoes.