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Harvesting time at Peter Kariuki’s potato farm in Weru village in Nyandarua, shared his experience. The county government is using his farm to experiment on power of mechanisation. [James Munyeki, Standard]
Nyandarua County is home of Irish potatoes and so it makes perfect sense when there is some revolution, it starts here.
This week, farmers sampled the power of mechanisation. Growers of the tubers witnessed how they can harvest potatoes on a 12-acre farm in record 30 minutes using modern machinery.
One of the beneficiaries, Peter Kariuki, a potato farmer at Weru village, shared his experience.
For years, he has incurred heavy losses for various reasons.
When it was planting and harvesting time, he was always forced to source for manual labour, which ate into his profit margins. It was also time-consuming.
Time-consuming
But change came when the Nyandarua county government in collaboration with Netherlands Development Organisation under its Smart Development Program and Agrimech Africa Ltd, an organisation that assembles farming machines, launched a transformative potato mechanisation farming system that has turned their fortunes.
Kariuki was lucky because the county government chose to experiment with his 12-acre farm three months ago.
“I expected it would take one week to plough, harrow and plant the potato seeds on the farm. But the process took less than an hour,” he says.
On Wednesday this week, three months later, it was a sight to behold as county officials and other partners visited his farm to witness the record harvest of the crop using tractors.
In an exercise that would have also taken a week to harvest, the 12 acres of crop were done in record 30 minutes.
“This was a pleasant surprise. We did not expect the exercise would take such a short time. It is amazing,” says Mr Kariuki.
Kariuki and other farmers are part of this revolutionary subsidised potato mechanisation project.
It entails land preparation, planting to harvesting.
The programme is meant to improve potato production in the region which is the county’s main cash crop. The county supplies 30 per cent of potatoes consumed in the country.
Game changer
The project became an urgent area of focus after research showed that potato production dwindled mainly due to poor farming methods.
According to Margaret Mungai in charge of the mechanisation in the agriculture department, the project will revolutionise potato farming and turn around fortunes of growers.
“We have discovered that a lot of time and money is lost since farmers rely on casual labourers starting from planting to harvesting. Embracing mechanisation is a game changer,” she says.
She points out that work that normally took five days on an acre, that involved plating using 10 casual labourers will now take 30 minutes when a farmer employs the new system.
“This will enable the farmer spend rest of the days to do other things. It is also cost effective,” she says.
She notes that the county was encouraging farmers to form cooperatives to rent and lease out the machines at affordable rates.
Issue of brokers
Ms Betty Musembi, horticultural advisor in charge of Netherlands Development Organisation says the department rolled out the programme in the major potato growing counties to boost production.
“This is one of the solutions to improve on productivity. The counties are leasing the machines from us through Agrimech and then pass over to the farmers,” she notes.
As part of the project, farmers will also get new and high yielding potato seed varieties that are less susceptible to potato blight and other diseases that reduce yields, coupled with losses incurred during ploughing, planting and harvesting.
Meanwhile, potato farmers have also called on the Government to address the issue of potato packaging and middle men.
Nyandarua produces between 33 and 35 per cent of total potato yield in the country, and farmers have little to show for their sweat.
Farmers complain of continued exploitation by brokers, who have reduced the price of a 90kg bag from Sh1,500 in December to between Sh1,000 and Sh1,200.
They have also slashed the prices of a 150kg bag from Sh1,700 to between Sh1,200 and Sh1,500 depending on collection location.
The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization
with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print operations,
television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group
is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in
matters of national and international interest.
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