00:06For decades, vegetables like cabbage, spinach and kale dominated Kenyan farms and markets.
00:12But today, indigenous vegetables such as amaranth, African nightshade and spider plant are gaining
00:18ground, valued for their high nutritional content and ability to thrive in local conditions.
00:24Firmers usually produce paddy rice within a season and they last for over six months as they leave the field
00:32fallow.
00:33In this case, they are not optimally utilizing the land.
00:36So we came up with an innovation whereby we do what we call sequential cropping.
00:41Sequential cropping in this case, we advise the farmers that after rice, you can actually do African leafy vegetables.
00:48In this case, we identified the farmer groups, we mobilized more farmers and we helped them to be trained on
00:54production of these African leafy vegetables.
00:58Alongside that, we found that it was very necessary to link them with the market.
01:02These vegetables grow quickly, require less water and can thrive using residual moisture left in the soil after rice farming.
01:09But it was identified that based on the market trends, the African leafy vegetables are getting more traction in the
01:17market as compared to cabbages and kales because of the nutritional component of it.
01:23Remember, genetically, these African leafy vegetables are inbred within the local African ecosystem.
01:30And therefore, they are more adaptable to the environment as compared to kales and also cabbages who require what we
01:36call artificial irrigation.
01:38Access to reliable markets has been a major turning point for farmers.
01:43We introduced inclusive contract farming whereby farmers, we come into an agreement with farmers that is mutually beneficial for all
01:50of us.
01:51They supply me with fresh vegetables and they are sure of a reliable market.
01:57So over time, farmers have also learned to trust us as Kenyeji na Kadhalika that they will always grow and
02:05they are sure of a market.
02:07And our customers are also very sure that whenever they come here, they will find all types of vegetables and
02:14there is consistency all year round.
02:16The system ensures farmers have a reliable market while buyers receive consistent quality produce.
02:23African leafy vegetables have what we call micronutrients.
02:26Micronutrients are the smallest nutrients that we need in the body, but we require them in small quantities, but they
02:32are very important.
02:34So there are vitamins and there are minerals.
02:36And we can only get the vitamins and the minerals when we prepare the vegetables and we prepare them in
02:42a way that we can retain the nutrients, not killing the nutrients.
02:45As demand for healthy indigenous foods grows, African leafy vegetables are proving to be more than just traditional crops.
02:52They are becoming a reliable source of income, nutrition and resilience for farmers.
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