Cabbage farming in Kenya

And we are back. This is Business Center. My name is Kelvin Nyakundi and today we are talking about cabbage farming and we are joined by David Ndegwa who is an agripreneur and he is well-versed in the agriculture, in the farming of vegetables rather and he's here to really tell us more about this cabbage farming but before that I want to remind you a question of the day where we had asked you how long does it take for a cabbage head to form? How long does it take for a cabbage head to form? Continue sending us your comments on that question of the day. We are seeing them, they are coming in and we'll be reading them as we continue with the show but but let us now get David to speak to us. How are you David? I'm good Kevin. How are you doing? I'm fine. I'm fine. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Thank you for having me Kevin. It's my pleasure. All right and all right. Today we are talking about cabbage farming and let's start by the basics. How can you distinguish between a good cabbage head and a bad one in the market? When you go to the market to buy, how can you distinguish? When you, how you can be able to distinguish a good cabbage from a good cabbage head from a bad one? Once the cabbage matures, it hardens, the head hardens. When you go to the market and you tap the head, it will produce a sound like a drum and when it's not mature, it produces a sort of a hollow sound. So and that cabbage which is firm, it is well formed and it's not that would pass for a good cabbage. Anything else should be going to the class of a bad cabbage. Okay and now when you go to the market, sometimes you find cabbages that have very, the leaves, the outside leaves have covered the whole head and you maybe you don't have the outside leaves and maybe you have others with the outside leaf. Someone might ask, is there a difference between that, between the two? Yes, normally cabbages when they are harvested, they are harvested with the outer leaves and what happens, the more, when the cabbage is fresh in the market, those leaves remain intact. As you, as the cabbage stay in the market, what happens is that the outer leaves start falling off because they lose water quicker than the inner leaves and they peel out. So the cabbage, as the cabbage stays in the market, it peels off and some of those leaves drops and mostly what the dealers do is to stripe off the outer leaves which makes the cabbage appear fresh. Okay and now you as an agripreneur and who is well-versed in this vegetable farming business, how long have you been in the cabbage farming business and what are some of the do's and don'ts when it comes to, maybe you want to be now a cabbage farmer or a vegetable farmer, what are the do's and don'ts? First of all, tell us how long you've been in this business and then you tell us the do's and don'ts. I've been growing cabbages for like this, I would say for the last seven years, I've been doing cabbages but the first time that I got, I started growing cabbages would be, I would call it like 20 years ago. So I've been, I'm well-versed with cabbage growing. If you say 20 years, that would be like an experience of 20 years growing one crop but that's not a mean task. Then when you talk about, when you talk about do's and don'ts, one thing I would tell you is that cabbage is all about using the right spacing, having the right population in their field and giving it enough or what I would call sufficient amount of water and feeding, those four parameters. So plant population, you have to get it right, plant population per acre, you have to plant it light using the right fertilizer, you have to feed it adequately, you give it enough water and you control the mainly aphids and caterpillars. Those are the two enemies, aphids, caterpillars and something else that is another pest that is called diamond back moth which which cause windowing effect. You look at a leaf, you see as if you are looking through a cutting. All right and you've spoken about the pests and caterpillars. I think we'll get to that later on but let me now ask you because you've said you've been in this business for a long time because 20 years or seven years is not a little time. What can you say is the state of cabbage farming in Kenya as at now? Cabbage farming as of now I would say it is very intense. Normally in other places it's done by small scale growers so it is still a small scale grower crop but in a place like Naivasha, cabbage is done by large scale farmers who normally plant. I know quite a number of farmers in Naivasha who normally plant on a weekly basis. They plant like five acres on a week on a weekly basis and we're talking about farmers who are doing like 200 acres of cabbages but in regular sequence whereby they harvest on a weekly basis. So I would say cabbage is one crop that has gained acceptability in Kenya. It's a vegetable that is very rich in calcium and also rich in vitamin C. Surprisingly viewers would be interested to hear that cabbage has more vitamin C than an orange. Okay all right yeah all right and now on that vitamin C than an orange can you expound a little bit so that at least people may know because vegetables are really not very popular because especially in the urban areas so you can expound on that. Cabbage is one vegetable that has gained acceptance in the urban area and one main main reason being that it is the stallability or the shelf life of cabbage is much higher than any other vegetable that you would think about. It is easier to stall cabbage for almost for like two weeks. It has a it has a very good storage I mean shelf life. The other thing is when I talk about vitamins we know that anywhere anybody you talk to will tell you that if you want vitamins you go ahead and buy fruits oranges or lemons but nobody talks about more concentration of vitamins when you when you talk about cabbages and most consumers don't look at a cabbage as rich in vitamins mainly especially C. I'm not a crop nutritionist but I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a nutritionist but I've seen through channels that it has anti-carcinogenic effects so for those people who have cancer if you if you drink cabbage juice one thing it has got it has got that healing effect. I don't know what's well more on that because I'm not all right I'm not an expert in that field but when it comes to human nutrition cabbage is a vegetable that you should have in your menu. All right okay now let's move along now what's what are the best varieties of cabbages in the country? What kind of varieties do you find people saying this is what we like? Like what are some of the varieties of cabbages that are really popular in the country? The most popular there are two most popular one is Gloria and Gloria has been with us for a very long time has stayed in the market and it's very popular and there's also Victoria. Those two are the main varieties that if you plant anyone coming to buy cabbages if a farmer plants those anyone coming to buy cabbages for you as far as provided you have taken good care of them they don't have pest and they are not deceased they will buy from you. There are also other varieties like Copenhagen markets which has been with us for a very long time one thing is that it is very sweet but it doesn't become big you know Kenyans have got this obsession with they like big things. So the Copenhagen market is a small small head but it's also very compact and it's sweet but because of that size if you get the market it's not as preferred as the Victoria and the Gloria. There's also Sugar Boy, Drumhead, Sugar Love those are varieties that are not very popular these days. All right David I'm really interested to know you know these names are very funny Sugar Boy and you've said some other names there that I can't remember but now let me let me first ask this Gloria and Victoria can you tell us some of the characteristics because we see all of them have female names or maybe names of areas please explain expound to us more how this came about and then now we'll go to those other names that you've mentioned. Answering what you have asked me these two varieties became popular because one of the biggest markets cabbage market that is known in Kenya is Mombasa markets. Mombasa sells about in a day they allow they sell about six trucks you can talk think about a truck carrying an average of three thousand cabbages wow you multiply by six that's eighteen thousand cabbages that are sold on a daily basis yes that's minimum. If you imagine Mombasa and where it's warm high temperatures those two cabbages varieties are able to sustain themselves or to be sold for between up to four days maximum of four days without deteriorating and that's how they became very popular. In terms of taste I think that is one of the they also taste nice these names one when the plant breeders are breeding a certain line they give names based on their prevalence and maybe from where this plant was bred at or location or Victoria or Gloria these are breeders name that they give to varieties which they are breeding okay and that's how that the names are acquired. Okay all right so this also these other names is is just the person who bred them that decided to give them the names and yes so for example we have this cabbage that is the cabbage with very unique colors what what can you say about them do we do we are they do we really grow them here or they're imported from outside? There are other cabbages like red cabbage there is also the Chinese cabbage they are all grown in Kenya what I don't know any of anyone who imports cabbages or somebody who grows or brings cabbages from other countries okay there are some cabbages that come from Tanzania but these are the same varieties that are grown and brought to Kenya when there is a high demand in Kenya but red cabbages and other cabbages what happens is that the seeds are imported but they are grown in Kenya. In terms of characteristics it is very hard to pick a Gloria from Victoria if you are not very conversant with them. Victoria normally tends to have a shape head that is that is protruding at towards the top while the Gloria is more flattish at the head but they form very nice head and proud head and also they they form good sizes you know those guys who buy cabbages prefer big sizes or big heads the bigger the head the higher the price yeah yes and and in terms of taste that is a smaller cabbage just as as as a bigger that is there's no difference okay when you in reference to the sizes yeah all right and now let's move on to the matter that is really of concern because we've been having weather patterns that have that are really fluctuating sometimes it's raining sometimes it's it's sunny within a day you can have like especially here in Nairobi the people who are in Nairobi you might find the weather is not really able to you can't predict the weather especially if you are a farmer so what would you say is the best weather that suits cabbages um mainly what happens is that uh cabbages are normally grown in by people who can be able to irrigate but when you go to areas of kinagop or high altitude areas these people normally relies on rain fed when you bring the irrigation aspects you actually reduces uh remove the area you can grow cabbages in low altitude and also in high altitude but if you are independent if you are independent you have to go to the high altitude or areas high rainfall like kinagop uh areas in meru but you don't get anytime you have uh you don't get adequate rainfall the cabbage tends to get uh smaller heads and you don't make money the farmer wouldn't make money because as i mentioned earlier the buyers are looking for big heads as opposed to smaller heads so once you once you bring the irrigation equation you you remove the ecological zones what happens is that if you are growing cabbages and irrigation in lower altitudes they tend to mature faster or earlier than those cabbages that are grown in high altitudes whether irrigated or not yes and what happens to uh maybe a person who grows cabbages in a nursery and how how maybe can someone prepare a nursery if we can ask there are two types of uh nursery preparations these days the technology has as has gone high uh farmers there are some farmers or specialized nurseries who are growing or propagating uh seedlings in in trays uh when i talk about a tray it is something similar to this this is a tray all right and uh these are these are spinach that have been propagated or raised in trays in the end you end up having something like this this is a cabbage seedling you can see uh because it has the trees have got holes and then you put the media into the tray once you plant the seed you end up having a seedling like that is like when you when you prepare your seedling like this you escape planting shock sorry for that inconvenience all right all right you experience something that is called transplant transplanting shock because it's coming with its own media and it's taken to the field this one will be able to germinate and come up straight away as opposed to the other method where a farmer goes and raises the soil prepares a bed normally it's one meter wide um with any length depending with the number of seeds that seedlings that you want to raise so you you remove all the weeds you make the soil uh fine you make uh small furrows mainly like two three centimeters deep then you come and plant the seeds irrigate and cover once the seeds germinate you remove the the mulch and then you allow the seedlings to germinate once they are about one month old you uproot them and transplant them in the field normally the seed bed this way because you have disappeared with the rooting system that that the plant or ceiling normally goes uh through something that we call transplanting shock it gets a shock and it is held back for about a week then it recovers and then starts growing so those are two methods that a farmer may use to propagate seedlings all right david and we need to wrap up because i'm being told we don't have enough time but now the last question that i'm asking you how can a farmer know that now this uh cabbage is ready for harvesting what shows that the cabbage is ready for harvesting there's something that we call physical maturity when you're observing cabbages in the field the upper leaf that wraps the head of the cabbage tends to thin if you look at it it is looking shiny if you tap it you get a drum sound and if you tap one that is not mature it sounds hollow so um if i may explain in kiswahili it's it's targeted and uh the other one is is flaccid so when it is targeted and uh when you tap it like this it sounds like a drum uh you will be able to know that that is now a mature cabbage and if you have if you happen to harvest cabbages before maturity they reduce the shelf life in the markets yep all right david uh that is our time we need to wrap up but thank you so much for uh coming to the show and telling us more about cabbage and i i know the viewers have learned a lot i myself have learned a lot today thank you so much for coming to the show thank you thank you kevin for having me okay uh i appreciate all right thank you so much all right then we're going to go for a short break but when we come back we'll go through innovations and agri facts and we'll get to know the answer of our question of the day and may might i remind you our question of the day is how long does it take for a cabbage head to form how long does it take for a cabbage head to form continue sending us your comments and we'll read them as we continue with the show but first let us go for a short break we'll be back with innovations and ugly facts