Strawberry Farm Set Up Plan for ¼ Acre in Kenya 2020

Since our strawberry farming story went up on YouTube early this year (2020), we have received numerous requests to share a simple plan for setting up a small but commercial strawberry farm. So today we are happy to share with you this simple, realistic and executable plan that you can implement immediately.

We have done our best to keep the figures as conservative as they can get. However, keep in mind that costs and prices might change over time and in different locations. These figures were developed for strawberry farming in Kenya in 2020.

For this plan, we shall considering an available space of ¼ of an acre. For such space we suggest that we use multi-storey garden technology as shown below. This will help us to maximize on this space since it is an intensive farming system.

Strawberry Multilevel gardens

Farm Set-up

The farm can fit at least 150 of the proposed gardens each occupying a 2x2 meter space and allowing for walk paths in between them.

These gardens are 6-tier and will each accommodate at least 120 plants. Therefore, with this setup, we shall have a total of 18,000 plants.

The plants will be watered through a special drip irrigation system with a maximum of 2 control points for ease of operation. An automatic timer will also be installed if you are willing.

These garden structures will be filled with the locally available soil at the centre of each tier and a mixture of red soil and animal manure in the crop rooting area.

This farm model has the following advantages:

1. We will be able to fit a much higher number of plants in the space than we would have ordinarily done if we planted on the ground – only 4,000 plants would have fit on a quarter an acre.
2. A small amount of red soil and manure will be used since these will only be placed on the rooting sections of the plants.
3. The need for weeding and mulching will be brought to the minimum.
4. The set up allows for high water efficiency and low off-surface evaporation thus bringing the cost of water to the bare minimum.
5. The fruits will be hanging on the sides of the garden tiers thus helping us to achieve very clean fruits.

Projected costs

The cost of setting up the farm is projected to be as follows:

Item	Cost
20 tons manure	40,000
1 tipper red soil	20,000
Multi-storey gardens set-up (150 gardens)	300,000
Irrigation system set up	162,000
18.000 Strawberry seedlings (Chandler variety)	270,000
Consultancy fees	20,000
Total	812,000

 

The cost of running the farm is as follows:

Item	Cost
Monthly Irrigation cost	7,200
Crop protection and feeding per month	4,000
Labour Monthly	10,000
Total	21,200

 

Projected returns

The project shall have a minimum of 18,000 plants. Each plant bears a minimum of 1 kg of fruits per year. Therefore the farm is projected to yield 18,000 kg of fruits per year. These are 72,000 punnets of 250 grams each. Selling each punnet at Ksh 50, the farm will have a turnover of Ksh3,600,000 per year.

Number of plants	18,000
Annual Yield per plant (kg)	1
Total yield (kg)	18,000
Total farm yield (punnets)	72,000
Price per punnet (Ksh)	50
Annual turnover (Ksh)	3,600,000

Given the projected costs and income, the farm should break even within the first year of operation.

How to start

Now that you have the facts and the figures, we would love to help you start your strawberry farm immediately. You can call us on 0724698357.