Why I ditched tomatoes for sweet potatoes

It is harvest time at Josphat Mugo’s farm sweet potato farm when we visit. Mugo and his wife Phyllis Wawira run a thriving sweet potato farm in Kirima, Kirinyaga County.

The farmer grows the Bungoma variety of sweet potato, which has a red outer covering and yellow on the inside. It is popular with consumers, but when it has scars, customers reject it.

At the farm, the workers carry the bags with the tubers to a tree along Ngaru-Gatuto road where they arrange them into small, medium and large sized piles then pack them in sacks.

 “We pack the produce that way so that merchants will buy the sizes that they prefer as per their customer’s needs,” Mugo says.

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Around 3pm, a tuk tuk that Mugo had hired to transport the produce arrives and they load the bags and it heads to Kagio market, about 10km away. Mugo is assured of a tidy sum from the sale of the sweet potatoes.

Since 2013, Mugo and his wife have been farming sweet potatoes and the rewards are sweet.

Previously, they grew maize and would at times try tomatoes, just like most farmers in the area, but it all flopped due to a number of factors.

But they settled on sweet potatoes after researching on the same.

“We discovered that maize and tomatoes are prone to attacks by many diseases. Sweet potatoes on the other hand are easy crops. Once you plant, you only weed it once and spray twice every month. After three months, your crop is mature and ready for harvest,” Mugo says.

Sweet potatoes are also more weather-resilient according to agronomists.

On marketing, Mugo says sweet potatoes sell faster because people have embraced healthy eating habits. The middle aged farmer sells a bag at Kagio market at between Sh2,500 and Sh3,000.

For him, the timing is always critical. When the crop matures at three months, many farmers harvest and ferry it to the market, flooding it. At that time, a sack sells at Sh2,000, but he waits for about two weeks and sells his at Sh3,000 and above.

The farmer’s best harvest was last year when his less than quarter acre land yielded 37 bags which he sold at Sh3,000 each. He pocketed Sh111,000.

The day Smart Harvest visited, Mugo had just harvested from a small portion of his farm. The harvest would have been 10 bags, but the last one had many small ones and a few diseased or injured ones. He feeds such rejects and the vines to his cows.

Mugo will harvest sweet potatoes in the other portion on the next market day.

In addition, the farmer has leased several parcels of land in the neighbourhood where he farms the crop.

Business is good, but the only challenge they face is a pest (ndendu) which affects the tuber. Mugo adds that they control it using a pesticide that costs Sh480 and is sprayed twice a month.

During dry periods, Mugo says the crop is more susceptible to diseases and its growth is slower. Given that his farm is next to a river, in such instances, he irrigates the crop twice a month.

Rewarding

His wife Wawira adds that sweet potatoes farming is rewarding.

“Through sweet potato farming we have educated our four children. One is at the university pursuing a course in business and we pay fees and his upkeep from the farm,” she says.

Thanks to his success, farmers in the area regard Mugo highly and they constantly seek his advice. He also sells them sweet potato vines for planting at Sh500 per bag.

Many farmers in the neighbourhood have also taken up sweet potato farming and it is normal to come across plots of the crop on Ngaru-Gatuto road as well as in other parts of Kirinyaga. 

Counties that lead in production of sweet potatoes in Kenya include Kakamega, Bungoma, Busia, Homa Bay, Rachuonyo and Kisii counties. In Kirinyaga County, Kiangwaci area is renowned for the tuber production.  

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