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Market Prices: Cabbage off-season around the corner
Women selling cabbage at Nakawa Market. The vegetable is more available during the wet season. Photo by Stephen Otage.
What you need to know:
Children love cabbage, and parents believe the vegetable is nutritious, however, the season is running out and the prices are about to shoot up.
The cabbage season is almost coming to an end. Ms Juliet Nakakande, a trader at Owino Market says, the end of the season means an increase in prices.
“One cabbage can go for Shs5,000 in scarcity and lowest price at Shs2,000,” Nakakande says. However, the cabbage now sells at Shs500 - Shs2,000 depending on the size.
At the beginning of the year, a cabbage went for Shs5,000 which Nakakande attributes to the bad weather at the beginning of the year. She says if the weather does not get very hot between now and October (when the next season is), then the prices will not be as high.
Nakakande explains, “The wet season enhances the growth of the cabbages unlike the hot season. During the wet season, we have a lot of cabbages of the market that we don’t where to keep them. You can actually get a cabbage at a price as low as Shs300.”
The season for cabbages starts June to July and we have them back on the market from October to November.
Cabbage varieties
The vegetable grows in Kabale, Kisoro, Bududa, Mpigi and Butambala. Ms Sarah Namulindwa, a trader at Wandegeya Market, says the area where they are grown determines their difference. “We differentiate them by their origin.” However, she says the ordinary person cannot tell the difference - to them, it is cabbage. For example, cabbages from Bududa are very heavy and big. Actually, Nakakande says one way to tell that the cabbage you are buying is of quality is if it is heavy. Nakakande says the vegetable has a better market when the children are back from school.
“I think it is because the children love the cabbage for sauce and many parents believe it has nutrients that could help a child grow.”
The traders realised that some customers prefer to take home cabbage that is ready to cook. So, they cut the cabbage and pack it in small white polythene bags which they sell at Shs500. Actually while I am doing the interviews, a number of people pick the packed cabbage rather than the whole ones.
Namulindwa says, “This has helped us increase on our sales because people have grown to a level where they want everything to be done for them. Before we learnt of the trick, we would have cabbage rot away.”
The traders argue that cabbage can stay for as long as three weeks if it still has its outer leaves covering it though it has to be stored well, in a dry place. However, during the rainy season, they say it is hard to keep the cabbage for long because it rots easily sometimes right from the garden.
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