Cutting off onion stems one inch or two to three centimeters from the bulb instead of leaving them up to eight centimeters long has seen a farmer reduce his onion drying time and become a darling for brokers lifting his earnings by 23 per cent.
Edwin Mwangangi, a young onion farmer at Katani, Syokimau, today dries his onions in less than two weeks and sells them for Sh43 per kilo, far more than the Sh35 brokers quote to other farmers around him.
Trimming onion stems correctly helps quickly dry them and limits bacteria getting into the bulb reducing storage rot. This increases the time onions can be stored to five to eight months. Drying onions properly or curing them is one of the two marks of quality that onion brokers look out for.
“Previously we would beat the onions with the sun for weeks and they would still not completely dry. We were flummoxed and despondent because we weren’t sure what we were doing wrong. Brokers would squeeze the tip of the onions and it would be wet. That would immediately mean they’d cut whatever buying price we had agreed on,” Edwin said.
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Leaving a longer stem does not seal the bulb’s neck exposing it to neck rot disease.
Today, Edwin who grows his onions on a little less than an acre, chops off the onion neck two to three centimeters from the onion bulb after harvest before drying them. His onions take just a week or two to be completely dry.
“No matter how long any broker presses the head of any of my onions today, their palm has no hint of wetness,” he beamed.
Today brokers have no reason to trim a couple of shillings from the price they had agreed on before seeing and inspecting his onions. “During the peak onion price season earlier this year, we would agree with onion brokers that they would buy my onions for Sh160 but on inspecting them, they would revise the price down to Sh130. I had to take it because I did not want my poorly dried onions to rot on the farm,” he recounted.
For Joshua Mamwaka, an onion broker at Nairobi’s Wakulima Market, having well-cured medium-sized onions is the secret behind Tanzania dominating the East Africa onion market.
“Brokers scramble to buy bags of onions from Mang’ola in Tanzania whenever they are available and abandon Kenyan onions because each of them is without fail well dried,’’ Joshua pointed out.
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This means he can easily store the onions and the small-scale vegetable vendors he supplies can keep them in their stalls for several weeks without worrying about spoilage.
Unfortunately, he rued that many farmers in Kenya do not take the time to learn how to properly cure onions. Instead, they rush to sell them immediately after harvest, especially when prices are high. As a result, they often deliver onions that are uncured or even immature, which are highly prone to rotting.