Maseno University develops mboga kienyeji seeds, trains farmers

Until about a decade ago, many families never recognised the importance of growing African indigenous vegetables, with kales, cabbages, spinach and other exotic varieties taking control of kitchen gardens.

The indigenous varieties were only available in the village, where people would pick them from the bushes, only if they were too broke to afford a ‘decent’ meal.

However, the term ‘mboga kienyeji’ has become popular in many eateries across the country, with fresh food stores running dry of the new delicacy.

Demand for the delicacy has shot up in the recent past and high-end hotels offer it as a stand-alone meal at high costs.

The fresh food sections of supermarkets have also discovered the growing demand of the vegetables, and most of their stocks rarely last a day, despite their high prices.

Praised for their high nutritional and medicinal values, the crops are no longer treated as weeds, as most of those in the business of its production wallow in money, with sumptuous dishes of black night sheds (managu), jute mallow (mrenda), amaranthus (dodo), slender leave (miroo) and spider plant in any hotel becoming a reserve for the financially stable.

It is for this reason that Maseno University commissioned a research, which would later lead to creation of a special African Indigenous Vegetables Unit two decades ago in the School of Agriculture.

The university has since assigned Prof John Onyango and Mr Peter Olewe the role of developing the programme, in which viable land in Western Kenya will be put under indigenous vegetables.

The duo is currently involved in production of the vegetable seeds and educating the farmers recruited into the programme.

Prof Onyango, a researcher and lecturer at the university, says ‘mboga kienyeji’ is soon becoming the next stop for people practising olericulture due to its numerous advantages over the exotic varieties.

“We started with a baseline survey in Nyanza and Western. We discovered that most indigenous vegetables come from Western Kenya, and this made us recruit about 250 contact farmers across the area. We trained them and started working with them in growing the vegetables,” says Onyango.

Once in a while, the farmers would be involved in workshops where they would be taught how to manage the vegetables. Onyango says the trial was successful, as each of the farmers later donated their land for use as demonstration plots and at least 10,000 farmers can access the mboga kienyeji seeds.

“At first farmers were surprised and did not take the project with the seriousness it deserves. Some reasoned that the traditional vegetables were considered as weeds in their areas, and could just be weeded out from farms to give room for other crops,” says Olewe.

He says producing traditional vegetables is cheaper than the exotic ones, given that they are disease resistant, are not affected by many pests, and have a very high agronomic value — the ability to produce their own seeds.

Today, Maseno University is working on increasing seed production — as many farmers continue to seek its support because most seed companies in the country do not have the indigenous vegetable seeds — in partnership with Japan’s Nagoya University, German’s Bayreuth University and the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation.