Why The Hard Okro Ruins The Market Price

As I said in my video, Steemit is getting more exciting for me because every single day, I get the chance to share a video with all my friends.

I've reviewed a couple of harvests, from Habanero peppers to cashews nuts. Today is another harvest time. It's okro.

Now I'm well aware that some do spell and pronounce it as "Okra". I think it's originally that, but in some parts of the world like west Africa, Ghana, we pronounce and spell it as "Okro". Just know that whichever one I choose, I'm talking about the exact same thing.

Okra has one attribute, it does not wait for anyone.

Within a short time on the farm, the soft pods change into something so hard it's almost like hard sticks. Two days of delay in harvesting and the plant has changed completely. It can no longer produce the soft interior part and starts building hard parts to protect the seeds. Such harvested okro has no value on the market because people do not eat wood with their soup, period.

Okra for local soup must have plenty of drawing slime in it. I actually like okra in my soup with fufu or rice balls but when it gets hard, you already know I'm going to throw them away.

The farmer who sells okra to the market looks for drawing slime in it. Once okra gets hard, the slime totally disappears from it. If the farmer were to put the hard okra together with the soft ones, the market women would immediately see the hard stiff lines on the body of the okra and reject the whole basket.

Wouldn't that bring a big loss to the farmer?

So you have to be smart about the timing, always.

Sorting the harvested okra on the farm is very important before going to market. Properly feeling the pods for firmness to check for texture is the main key to all this. Any okra that cannot bend will be too old to use.

There are firewood trees and there are okra trees.

So it is best to sort the harvested okra to keep the market price. It takes time understanding all of these strategies in farming, but farmers will get the buyers to stop complaining and selecting quality will bring good profit than trying to cheat people.