A farmer displays some of the products she and her colleagues make from the orange fleshed sweet potato. PHOTO/LOMINDA AFEDRARU
Sweet potato is considered as an important crop and it is ranked as the fourth most important crop in Uganda in terms of production volumes, totalling to over 1.8 million metric tonnes after maize, cassava and banana.
This is according to the Uganda Bureau of Standards (UBOS) statistics of 2016. It is highly regarded in Uganda, with a reported per capita consumption of 73 kilogrammes per person per annum.
In addition to food, sweet potato is an important commercial crop contributing to incomes of farmers in Uganda. It is grown in all regions of Uganda on 55 percent of root and tuber arable land.
The major sweet potato producing districts include Iganga, Bugiri, Nakasongola, Gulu, Arua and Kyenjojo, among others. Sweet potatoes in Uganda are marketed principally as fresh roots and consumed in steamed, boiled, fried or roasted form.
However scientists from the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) have been engaging farmers across the country to embrace sweet potato value addition, which has been adopted by a number of farmer groups across the country.
This was revealed during the first ever East African Agribusiness Expo which took place at NaCRRI in Namulonge under the theme “Fostering Wealth Creation, Resilience and Sustainable Agriculture through Agribusiness and Innovation” and below are the details.
Background
The programme leader Root Crops at NaCRRI, Dr Bernard Yada explained his team has been improving sweet potato varieties for pest and disease resistance, drought tolerance and nutrition over the years.
However the improved variety breeding programme later intensified with scientists breeding varieties against weevil infestation through extracting DNA and making crosses to reduce the breeding period from 10 years to five years.
A number of varieties have been released which farmers are growing namely, orange fleshed sweet potato variety such as NASPOT8, 11, 12, 13, and NAROSPOT1, 2, 3 and 5.
Additionally, other notable releases include NASPOT 7, 9, 10, and Dimbuka-Bukulula. Some of these varieties are biofortified for vitamin A namely NASPOT 7 and 8.
Some of the land race varieties are Dimbuka, Sukai, Tanzania and Kawogo. They are most widely cultivated due to their sweet taste, high dry matter content and durability.
Agribusiness farmer expo
The director of NaCRRI Dr Titus Alicai explained that the institute has conducted expo in collaboration with the East African Grain Council to expose farmers to all the grain, seed and seedlings which have been developed by Naro Institutes in Central Uganda and elsewhere.
He contends that as scientists they develop crop varieties mainly for food security and nutrition for the uptake of all Ugandans.
The focus is on stress tolerant crops free from pests and diseases in order for farmers to obtain good seed and seedling for increased yields.
Giving the achievements of the institute he pointed out that so far his scientists have released more than 90 varieties of different crop varieties over the last 10 years.
This accounts to 2.4 million metric tonnes to 4.5 million metric tonnes with maize yields increasing 2.5 tonnes per hectare fetching 89 million US dollars per annum.
The sweet potato value chain
At the symposium, the team demonstrated sweet potato value chain right from the farmers who were teaching the best agronomy practice to farmers and students up to products which they have processed out of sweet potato flour.
Dr Yada explained that when his team develops the varieties, they ensure it is clean from viruses in order for farmers not to plant infected vines.
The breeding process starts from the laboratory to obtain early generation seed where the seedlings are transferred to the screen house for selection.
The seedlings are then transferred to certified farmers belonging to their cooperative unions. These selected seedling operatives will further multiply the seedlings which is sold to individual farmers for planting.
Farmers speak out
Mr Tito Wanale from Buyende aged 41 is a farmer growing sweet potato and multiplying seedlings. He belongs to Buseko seed producers and cooperatives union with 108 members and he is the chairperson.
Wanale and his colleagues multiply varieties namely Naropt1, 3, 6 and 7 and Naspot1 and 8, Tanzania and Kabody.
He has been growing the land races for the last 13 years but four years ago he began multiplying seedling (vines) on three acres of land.
The other five seedling multipliers do it on 1-2 acres of land but are able to supply all their members.
He contends that in a season the seed multipliers usually produce 10 pickups of potato vines which is sold in sacks and each sack is sold at Shs15,000.
Ms Betty Muwuma aged 62 is from Kamuli District and process sweet potato flour and leaves to make tea ingredients.
When processing sweet potato flour, she is able to add ingredients such as roasted soy bean flour, rice flour and maize flour to come up with baby foods. She belongs to the same farmer cooperative where they have allocated 10 acres of land for growing sweet potatoes which is processed into flour.
On her part she is able to process flour where she mixes 100 kg of sweet potato flour, 50kg of rice and 100kg of maize. She packages them in 500grms which is sold Shs10, 000.
Varieties
A number of varieties have been released, which farmers are growing namely, orange fleshed sweet potato variety such as NASPOT8, 11, 12, 13, and NAROSPOT1, 2, 3 and 5.
