Feature: Potato farmers in Kenya take up machines to better yields

Farmers growing potatoes in Kenya are steadily embracing mechanization to increase supply as demand for the produce, mostly consumed as fries, rises in both urban and rural areas.

Potatoes are Kenya's fourth most important staple, after maize, wheat and rice, whose shortage is filled by imports.

However, unlike the other staples, all the potatoes consumed in Kenya are produced mainly in Central and Rift Valley regions.

It is in these two regions where mechanization is gathering pace to meet demand by improving cultivation and reducing post-harvest losses, which sometimes reach 50 percent of the produce.

"I had to acquire the potato harvester to reduce losses arising from damage of potatoes on my 20-acre farm," Fredrick Kinuthia, a potato farmer in Molo told Xinhua in an interview this week.

"The damage was great because I used to hire over 20 people to dig the potatoes from the ground using hoes. Sometimes the implement could bruise the produce and I would spend up to 900 dollars on the work alone," added the farmer, who is among a growing number in the East African nation turning to machines.

The harvester runs at a calculated depth, just below the crop, picking the potatoes from the soil, and as it does this, it creates a nice flat seed bed for the farmer to plant another crop without the need for any further mechanical land preparation.

In Kenya, up to 60 percent of the crop, according to agricultural experts, can be damaged when the process is done manually.

Fergus Robley, the General Manager of FMD East Africa, a company that deals with farm machinery, noted that mechanization can help Kenyan farmers produce up to five times what they get today.

"The average potato yield in Kenya is three to six tonnes per acre. Several factors contribute to this dismal performance including substandard potato seeds, low level of mechanization and poor application and quality of fertilizers," Robley said.

According to Robley, potato output can be increased to 20 to 30 tonnes per acre by addressing the quality of seeds and use of machines.

"Mechanization is the surest way to improve yield. Farmers who have embraced mechanized agriculture and use high quality seeds as well as appropriate fertilizers are assured of increased production."

As in many other parts of Africa, in Kenya the selection of seeds is given little attention. Most farmers usually sell the largest potatoes for cash, eat the medium-sized ones at home, and keep the smallest as future planting material.

Besides the harvester, other machines farmers are going for are the ridger, which prepares the soil to give a bed a consistent tilth and good aeration, which is necessary to ensure the tubers are able to multiply sideways.

The planter, on the other hand, allows the seeds to be placed at the right depth and given intervals as specified by the seed producers.

To prevent the build-up of pathogens in the soil, farmers are advised to avoid growing potatoes on the same land year to year.

Agricultural experts note that crop rotations of three years alternating with other dissimilar crops such as maize and beans will help eliminate the pathogens.

Crops susceptible to the same pathogens for potatoes like tomatoes should be avoided to break the potato pests' development cycle. Endit