It has to start with growing BT cotton - that GMO cotton - is what will start value chain for textile and animal feeds.
This Ruto has taken a bold move - BT cotton is now a reality.
Otherwise it will be same - importing rolls of finished - then stacking it up.
Mitumba is great for lower class - who can buy clothes for 100 bob.
So why ban? Why dont new clothes compete?
Let slum dwellers and poor people wear mitumba.
The more choice the better...
Until such a time we are growing tonnes of cotton.
Mitumba should be banned...we need to have local textile companies supplied by local cotton growers..most of these Mitumba people will be absorbed in that value chain...GOVERMENT can also train and sub contract Mitumba sellers with textile machines to work from their homes and supply apparels with certain set standards.
I just wonder how these Mitumba people survive...mara the Mitumba bale has torn clothes,shoes not similar,price up and down....very unustainable,ladies who used to do it back in the 1980s and 1990s became gikomba prostitutes to feed their families while men became drunkards..i saw many broken homes from gikomba tradeds while factory employees had strong family units because of sustainable income while they could also manage to educate their children through loans unlike gikomba traders.
I rather work in epz athi river and earn 20k than be a gikomba TRADER.SAVAGERY.
I did it years back.Its hell.