Vegetable vendors counting losses despite increase in yields

Nyeri, Thursday, 18, May, 2023

KNA By Samuel Maina/Hellen Ndirangu

In an ironic twist of fortune, vegetable traders in Nyeri are finding themselves in an unfamiliar territory as the number of clients visiting their stalls keep on dwindling due to a glut in the market.

The vendors have pointed out that due to the influx of green vegetables in the market following the onset of rains last month, they are now being forced to discard dozens of kilos of the merchandise due to lack of customers.

Joyce Wamuyua, green grocer at the Nyeri main market says the problem is no longer competition from other vendors but from their clients, many of who are now getting vegetables from their pieces of land back at home.

“It is increasingly difficult these days to woo anybody to purchase our vegetables since many people can now comfortably get almost everything they need from their own farms. To put it more succinctly is that we are barely making it by at a time we thought the advent of rains will make things better for us,” she laments.

Rosemary Wangui, another vegetable vendor, says she was upbeat things will improve with the ongoing rains since there will be a steady increase in production, but the reality has proved her wrong.

Wangui who says she had even increased her stocks to tap on the new windfall only to find herself struggling to dispose of kilograms of withering bunches of vegetables daily due to lack of clients.

“When the rains came, the production of vegetables slowly picked up making our wholesalers reduce their prices from sh 40 per kilogram to sh 20 per kilogram for most greens. This eventually impacted negatively on small scale traders forcing us to follow suit only to hit a dead end. Now we are left with stocks of vegetables that no one is willing to buy to sell,” she explains.

But for others like Gladys Wangari who sells vegetable seedlings, the season could never have been better.

Wangari who plies her trade outside the main Nyeri market says since the onset of the rains, clients have been frequenting her stand in droves to purchase either kales or spinach seedlings for planting back in their farms.

“This time round I have had the highest number of customers because almost everyone is now taking advantage of the rains by planting vegetables in his or her farm for purposes of domestic consumption. Everybody wants to take advantage of the season by planting anything that will save him the agony of spending the little cash available in purchasing what can be produced in the farm,” she states.

But even with the vegetable glut due to high supply, traders like John Kinuthia who sells cabbages are making a kill out of the situation. Owing to the influx of cabbages into the market, the prices have plummeted from Shs. 40 a piece in January to the current Shs. 20.    

However, Kinuthia says the slump in prices has created the perfect condition for his business as he can sell more pieces of cabbages at a reduced cost compared with what he used to sell at the beginning of the year.

“At the beginning of the year, one cabbage used to retail at between Shs. 40 and Shs.50. However, the same is now selling for as low as Shs. 20 meaning I can sell more pieces to more clients. In addition, food joints and eateries are also cashing on the reduced prices by stocking up their stores and this means we are now forced to increase our supplies to meet the demand,” he states.

Courtesy; K.N.A