Sikondo
The Sikondo Green Scheme Project in Kavango West started last week to harvest its first crop of broccoli planted on one hectare of land.
Broccoli is an edible green plant of the cabbage family. It is rich in vitamin C and is widely reported to contain cancer-fighting properties, such as selenium.
When New Era visited the site of the green scheme, project assistant manager Maxwell Nghidinwa was in the field hard at work picking the crop with other project workers to ready the produce for market.
“Now they’re ready for harvest. We planted two crops in June for successive continuous production. The broccoli is planted with cabbages, as they are one family. They’re the same crop and we planted both in the same area, but sharing one hectare each,” he explained.
Nghidinwa says this is the first time broccoli has been planted by the commercial unit of the farm project. He mentioned that one of the medium-scale farmers in the area said he had once attempted it, but his attempt didn’t yield a harvest like this.
“This is looking good for a first time and so we plan to continue planting broccoli every winter, as it is a winter crop,” Nghidinwa said.
“This is a very good crop and what we at Sikondo are trying to do is to expand the range of crops we produce at the project to expose our communities to these so that they can eat a balanced diet,” he said.
“The good thing about broccoli and cabbage is that their seeds are cheap. We get the supplies from Aqualand in Okahandja and the input cost is actually cheap, compared to other crops. From the field we take them to the warehouse and sort them, check the quality and then pack them according to their sizes.
“The first mandate we have is to take the produce to AMTA [Agro Marketing and Trade Agency] to make use of their infrastructure, but then sometimes if they are slow in finding a market we can look for markets elsewhere, even in other regions,” he elaborated.
“Currently we also produce potatoes, onions, beetroot, carrots, cabbages and broccoli. Our principal crop at the moment is wheat, as we’re coming out of the winter season. With summer approaching on the medium-scale farming side we have butternut, watermelon and jam squash,” he said.
Nearby residents can buy vegetables at the green scheme project at a lower price. The project sells at a store at the entrance to the project, which is situated 10 km west of Rundu along the Rundu-Nkurenkuru road in Kapako in the Kavango West Region.
Nghidinwa started working at Sikondo Greenscheme project as the assistant manager on the project in October last year.