Comparing Flower Farming, Vegetable Farming And Cereal Farming In Kenya

Many a times I compare flower farming to vegetable or cereals farming and I must confess that I find the two types of farming in Kenya being similar in that they are crops but the real divergence comes in the mindsets of the operators/farmers.

Whileas the flower farmers thinks interms of stems in a unit area e.g Y stems in a bed , the vegetable/cereal farmers thinks in terms of areas of crop e.g an acre of cabbages, an acre of maize etc .

One acre of cabbages may carry 8000 pieces as per the spacing and another may have 16000.
An ideal acre of maize planted using a precision or a well calibrated planter carries 21000 plants at 75 by 25 cm . Another one may hold 18000 or 15000 .

What farmers probably do not understand is that the number of 90kgs bags that one harvest is contributed by the number of combs harvested. Its important as a maize farmer to thresh some few combs and get to know how many combs makes a kilo . As much as this may appear insignificant, it is what counts in production.

Its also important to farmers to understand that, its not the price per bag that earns profit but the number of bags per unit area planted . The higher the number of bags per acre , the lower the cost of production per bag and this is the key eligibility to the profit world .

While the flower farmers adopts precision farming through measurements and everything quantified, the agricultural/ horticultural farmers have almost zero respect to measurements and are allergic to details such plant population, spacing etc .

When it comes to marketing of the produce , the flower farmers are certain about their market and you rarely hear them complaining .

On the other hand , their counterparts thinks that they have a contract with the government never mind about the contract opequeness to feed Kenyans and therefore cry about everything at any opportunity even when the wind changes direction. They are always driven by the greed about selling whatever they produce at higher prices in order to cover for production inefficiencies.

A farmer would be more interested to know when he or she can grow onions to sell at higher price which given a choice as a consumer, he would not purchase at . This is what is called scarcity mentality where one is planning to benefit from low supply or scarcity as a result of calamity or disaster that does not favour others . You pray for disasters to strike other people’s production so that you can make money alone .

The flower farmers are smart because they realize that there are factors that are not under their control and therefore do not focus on them as they produce.

With the price of farm inputs going up uncontrollably, its important for farmers to note that they must eliminate production inefficiencies in order to remain afloat..

There are some key aspects that separate boys from men in farming and these are.

1. For every crop that you want to grow , make sure you know its production target per acre or per the area in question.
2. Find out the average price that the produce is normally bought at over a period .
3. Make sure you know the crop spacing per row , within the rows and the plant population.
4. Make sure you carryout the soil analysis and have someone competent to advise on fertlizer requirements. ( please do not cut corners on this one )
5. Ensure you have adequate supply of water and that you understand the basic principles of irrigation.
6. Understand land preparation required for the crop in question and get the right implements.
7. Workout or look for someone to workout on how much it will cost you to grow one acre of the crop and the expected income using the average price .
8. Go into farming after you have understood all these aspects in order to avoid saying that farming is risky after burning your fingers forgetting that you are the risk factor in farming.

Compiled By: David Ndegwa