How Jos young farmers cultivate rare vegetables to make a living

Umar Faruk, is a Jos leek farmer who has been cultivating and selling the crop for more than 20 years, in Farin Gada market, a popular perishable produce market in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State. He said though he is not producing in large quantities, yet the business has done a lot […]

Umar Faruk, is a Jos leek farmer who has been cultivating and selling the crop for more than 20 years, in Farin Gada market, a popular perishable produce market in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State.

He said though he is not producing in large quantities, yet the business has done a lot for him, adding that it has provided him and his family with a home.

According to Indexbox, an online medium, Nigeria’s leek market report for 2023, indicated that the United States constituted the largest supplier of the produce to Nigeria, with 85% of total imports. Moreover, leek imports from the United States exceeded the figure recorded by the second-largest supplier, Belgium.

 Leek onion is one of the marvellous vegetables that most farmers ignore in Nigeria despite its richness; it’s lovely in soups and sauces. According to farmers, leeks add aroma to food and can appeal to good taste in different foods, even though the majority of people in Nigeria hardly use it in their cooking.

According to Faruk, farmers don’t engage in leek farming because it takes longer—from the nursery, secondary and harvest stages—before they could sell it, adding that with local onions often available in the market, consumers rarely patronise it.

Although most vegetables are produced in the northern states of the country, leeks are mostly cultivated in Jos, Plateau State, and could be cultivated during the dry or rainy season. The farmers said farming such vegetables is profitable if one harvests them when the demand for them is high in the market.

The farmer said, “I am a leek farmer and at the same time engage in the sale of the products in the market. I do both in order to earn more rather than concentrating in the farm alone. Farming and selling this crop has done a lot for me.

My father is a farmer and taught me how to cultivate the crop. He also taught me how to sell it, which is why I am completely into farming of leek and other crops.

“What he used to do during that time was that after we left the farm, we used to come to the market and do the leek business because he believed that engaging in both farming and selling the product would help a lot in ensuring that the house is provided with food, and in taking care of some other responsibilities of the home.

What I gain from leek business

The 40-year-old farmer said he had achieved a lot as a leek farmer for more than two decades. He said though he wasn’t a millionaire but he was able to marry, build a house, and has been paying his children’s school fees and taking care of other necessities. “I have gained a lot; I build where I am living with my family. I pay school fees of my kids. The biggest thing is that I feed my family every day from the leek business.”

The farmer said leek farmers can gain or lose depending on how the market or the demand for the products is. He said when many farmers produce it in large quantities at the same time, they are likely to lose their money despite the difficulties involved in farming.

“When many farmers bring the crop to the market, there will be a glut and the price will go down. It is a perishable item also and doesn’t need to take long period after harvest. So, when there is a huge supply to the market, you have to sell it at whatever price, and this is one of the challenges of the crop,” he said.

But farming the crop, he said, is profitable when it is scarce and there is high demand, noting that, “sometimes, it will flood the market while sometimes, it will be scarce. The market is always good when it is not much in the market.”

On why the crop is not expensive since only a few people cultivate it, the farmer said, “Yes, though only a few people cultivate it, out of 10% of Nigerians, 8% prefer using the common onion to the leek. That is why the demand for the common onion is higher than for the leek onion. The price of this vegetable is not stagnant. It changes. It can go up or come down.”

Why farmers ignore it

According to some farmers spoken to, there are two basic factors that cause many of them not to invest in leek farming, paving the way for the import of the product into the country.

 Faruk said farming leek is not an easy task as the crop takes several months before it ripens. He said when you plant the seed, it takes almost two months before it is transferred to the secondary stage, where you have to replant it for another three months. “It takes six months before cultivation, and if it is well taken care of, it could be cultivated within five months,” he said.

He said another factor that discourages farmers from going into leek farming is the issue of its low consumption by people, who more often than not prefer to use normal onions instead of the leek, which, according to him, could serve the same purpose.

How to cultivate leek onion, celery 

According to the farmer, farming of the product often starts at the nursery stage, when one would get a small part of the farmland and plant the seed, and when it germinates to a certain level, it is then transferred for proper planting, which is the second stage.

Just like other vegetables, the farmer said, leek onions also require sufficient fertiliser for them to grow well, adding that one has to be removing weeds every two weeks.

He said “the crop requires adequate care. If you want to have a bumper harvest, you have to be removing the grasses and applying fertiliser every two weeks. This will allow it to grow well and ensure a huge harvest.”

Celery

Faruk is not only engaged in leek farming, as he has also been into celery farming in Jos North LGA for many years. Like leek, celery is not much cultivated in the state and across other parts of the North as farmers shy away from such cultivation.

The farmer said celery farming involves the same process as leek farming, including time consumption and application of fertiliser, adding that it requires frequent removal of grasses around it like the leek.

On the price of the product, the farmer said celery attracts almost the same price in the market as the leek depending on the situation of the market, adding that the demand for it in the North is very low.

He added, however, that “although the consumption is very low, the demand is increasing by the day as many people are using it as medicine. 

Faruk also said both leek and celery are supplied to the southern part of the country, where people use them to prepare soups and other dishes.