Yara East Africa Limited, Kenya and Uganda's leading crop nutrition company, has collaborated with Agrico PSA, a supplier of high-quality certified potato seeds, to educate potato farmers on the importance of using certified seeds and the right inputs for better quality and yields.
Potato farmers in Nakuru, Nyandarua, and Narok counties have also been advised to plant new varieties of potatoes such as Markies, Destiny, Dutch Robin, and Java.
Markies is a high-yielding processing variety suitable for processors, hotels, and restaurants, whereas Destiny is a crisp and chips processing potato variety that matures early. Dutch Robin matures faster and is less susceptible to late blight.
The farmers attended a field day at the Agrico farm in Kabarak, where they were guided through the process of growing high-quality potatoes for export and local processing. Agronomists from both companies taught farmers best practices for increased production while also connecting them with buyers.
Yara's Regional Agronomist, Kefa Makori, stated that in addition to providing proper inputs for farmers, particularly fertilizer, the organization wanted to ensure farmers had a market for their produce in order to reduce post-harvest losses and exploitation from middlemen.
Following the initial training, Yara provides field officers and digital services to their farmers to ensure the safe use of agrochemicals.
"The potato varieties we are encouraging farmers to grow are higher-yielding and have a longer shelf-life, and Yara has ensured there is a ready market," Makori explained.
He revealed that they were currently working with over 500,000 potato farmers and thousands of others who grew a variety of crops such as maize, bananas, and tomatoes. Yara collaborates with individual large-scale farmers and groups of small-scale producers to aggregate produce for the market.
"It is difficult for a farmer farming on a one-acre plot of land to produce enough tonnage for either export or local processors, which is why we encourage them to work in groups for better market access and logistics," Makori explained.
The exotic varieties whose seeds were imported from the Netherlands for propagation here in Kenya, according to the Regional Agronomist, can also be used by households.
According to James Kimoi Moi, Director of Kangoy Farm, which collaborates with Agrico East Africa Company to multiply seeds for exotic potato varieties, there is a high local demand for high-quality potatoes. He gave several examples of food chains and potato processors that required unusual potato varieties.
He stated that the company, in collaboration with his farm, produces certified potato seeds for farmers. Kimoi advised farmers not to re-use potatoes harvested from their farms because the disease could easily spread. "Seed production is not the same as regular potato cultivation. There are treatment and monitoring stages that an ordinary potato on the farm does not go through to ensure they are disease-free and of the highest quality," he explained.
