How a China visit helped engineer venture into dragon fruit farming

Antony Kinoti Mugambi/HANDOUTWhen Antony Kinoti Mugambi, a telecommunications engineer in Nairobi, Kenya, visited China on a work trip in 2012, he had no idea the visit would help him start his own dragon fruit farm.“23 years ago, I visited Guangzhou, China and ate a very interesting food item. I didn’t know if it was a plant, fruit, vegetable, or processed item; it was melting in my mouth like ice cream,” he said.

For nine years, the taste stayed in his mind until his second visit to the country. “I observed that Chinese were looking healthy and active; you could hardly tell old from young,” he said.

His friend Alex Sundebao, a Chinese, told him the secret was that they ate food as medicine. He told him about Pak Choi, Durian, Mangosteen, Tino, and Dragon Fruit.

“The name Dragon Fruit made me curious because Dragon is a mythical creature, but he said it was a valuable fruit,” Mugambi said.

They went into a supermarket, where Sundebao picked an artificial-looking item similar to a pineapple, but soft and vividly coloured, costing about 10 US dollars.

He realised Dragon Fruit was what he had eaten in 2012. He got the fruits, extracted the seeds, brought them home, planted them and waited eight years. On April 28, 2020, he got his first fruit.

The fruit originated from South America, where it is called Pitaya, and is a cactus family plant. He discovered that one can cross the wild cactus variety with a dragon fruit to create a variety.

He developed his own variety on his farm and took four years to get patent protection for 25 years. Plant breeder rights protect others from benefiting from his intellectual property without his consent or authorisation.

As a pioneer dragon fruit farmer in Kenya, he had nobody to learn from.

“For instance, its varieties are self-infertile; you have to wake up at night, get pollen from another flower and pollinate them. It also flowers only one night in its entire existence period,” he said.

The seed takes eight to 10 years to produce a fruit. He produced many mature stems taking between 12 months and 18 months.

He urged farmers to diversify rather than rely on traditional cash crops. Semi-arid areas are suitable, as it takes less time in warm areas than in cold areas.

After harvesting his first fruit, he expanded his orchard and nursery. He hasn’t satisfied demand, but has mentored over 1,000 farmers in Africa.

His first international guest was Emmanuel Okine from Ghana in 2021, who has a successful orchard there.

It’s expensive because of its health benefits, nutritional value, and use in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. In Kenya, a kg is about Sh1,500.

It helps reduce hyperacidity or stomach acidity. “For instance, consume pepper, then given it the bitterness of pepper will go away in two minutes.

Fruit flies damage dragon fruits by laying eggs inside the fruit, then larvae form. To minimise chemical pesticide use, he recommends fruit fly traps with pheromone-laced pesticide in a container to attract fruit flies. In the container, they are trapped and die.