MLANGO FARM: the journey of resilience, zeal and quest for quality vegetable farming

By Steven Mulanda

In Kiambu County, Ngecha village, a farming revolution is taking shape being chaperoned by Kamande Njenga and Els Breet a Kenyan-Dutch couple who have transformed 20 acres of neglected ancestral farmland into an agricultural bee hive of activities. Their journey to farming dates back to 15 years as a young couple living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands when Kamande first mooted the idea of relocating back home to be a full time farmer.

Though the feasibility of the idea according to Els at the beginning looked futile due to lack of an elaborate busi-ness plan and lack of agricultural training, it’s the resilience, zeal and quest by her husband that convinced and mo-tivated her. They have named the farm as ‘Mlango’ a Swahili word meaning door thus welcoming all and sundry not only for farming but also for a perfect place to rest and enjoy the peaceful rural ambiance. At Mlango Farm you find a combination of the warm African atmosphere with Dutch gezelligheid.

‘’When we relocated I secured a job in Nairobi and my husband was generally at home, clearing bushes and plant-ing cabbages in small portions as we monitored the market was going to respond to our entry. We were delighted to receive our first customer in Gigiri whom we used to deliver 3 crates of vegetables every morning and bit by bit with time it got more, and more and I transitioned from full time working at the farm,’’ Els said.

Mlango Farm grows several vegetables such as; Baby Carrot, Beetroot, Borage, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Car-rots, Celery, Cherry tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, Chioggia, Chives, Chayote, Courgette, Cucumber, Daikon, Corian-deror Dhania, Eggplant, Fennel, Green capsicum, Kohlrabi, Leek, Lemongrass, Lemon Verbena, Lettuce (12 differ-ent types), Mint, Mizuna, Nasturtium, NewZealand Spinach, Pakchoi, Parsley, Radish, Red Cabbage, Rosemary, Rucola, Sage, Savoy cabbage, Spinach, Spring Onion, Sukuma Wiki, Swiss Chard, Tarragon, Tatsoi, Turnips and White Sapote.

With farming of this high value crops requiring specialized training, the farm has tapped into the services of local workforce whom they have been able to train on agricultural management. They have been pivotal in transferring the knowledge to local workforce, majority of them being women. The workforce has undergone theoretical and practical training on farming of the array of vegetables including planting, bed maintenance, weeding, irrigation, harvesting and packaging.

Kiambu County has very good soil and fertile land, trainable local youth and women, availability of unexploited land for farming, availability of water to farm throughout the year, and proximity to the Nairobi. These factors have placed Mlango Farm at a pole position of supplying fresh vegetables all year round.

“After seven years of building the farm, something interesting came out. Most of our clients began asking if they could bring their families for a day out in the farm. As we welcomed the idea and saw it as a business opportunity, one of the visitors said: “ I am a teacher, can I bring my pupils to come and see where the food they consume comes from?“. She was categorical because some of her students in Nairobi actually don’t know farm life and im-portance of taking care of the environment. At the moment we have lots of schools visiting the farm every week,” Els stated.

At Mlango Farm they aim at a sustainable way of farming, without using chemicals and pesticides or synthetic ferti-lizers; strictly being organic.With increase in lifestyle diseases, most people are concerned on what types of food to eat, thanks to the media and internet where many reports highlights to the masses, where the food is grown and how its grown and how safe it is. People have also embraced nutritionists advises on food consumption.
The farm majorly sells its produce to hotels and restaurants in Nairobi. Their first customer at the inception advised them to be growing an array of vegetables and focus on hotels and restaurants because they need every kind of vegetables every day. “In addition to this, we do vegetable farmshare. This is a concept we knew from The Neth-erlands. It is a method whereby consumers have an assignment with local farmers to be purchasing a share of a farmer’s crop. This method entails people signing up by email or through our website. For individual households in Nairobi we deliver weekly farmshare baskets with a variety of fresh vegetables to different pickup points. The farmshare costs only 950 Ksh per week. The basket comprises of at least 10 varieties and changes weekly, depend-ing on availability. One basket is enough for 4 or 5 meals,” she explained.

For the last fifteen years since she engaged herself with growing vegetables she states to have learned a lot, in-cluding many facts about bad impacts of chemicals and pesticides on our food. This has strongly convinced her of the benefits of organic farming and it has made her believe that this is the best and only way to nourish our fami-lies.

The philosophy that drives Mlango Farm is to be self-sustainable in future, free from bills, free from chemicals and pesticides and by use of renewable energy for all of their needs for electricity, gas, transport and water. “The veg-etable farming revolution that we have initiated in this area traditionally been regarded as unproductive is meant to motivate more people to join farming. We have a base core of 50 staff depending on this farm for their daily livelihood and it motivates us a lot and we are calling on them also to engage in farming activities on their pieces of land back home,” she said.

For those people who envision themselves being farmers one day, Els has an advice. “Farming is interesting though it needs a lot of hard work and being persistent, go for it and just start. At the beginning I told my husband for him to succeed he needed to go for training and this is the world I come from. But that is not only the case, learn from the mistakes you make while farming and little by little you will perfect your craft. It’s not about money; I get people here who tell me they need a big CapEx to start. Just start with what you have and continue, don’t give up you definitely will build up something. Don’t sit down waiting for people to tell you what to do,” she opined.

For all info about Mlango Farm, visit www.mlango.org