Swaziland exported around 10 tonnes of sweet potatoes to Johannesburg. There was also a huge demand for fresh sweet potatoes during the months of January, October and December in Botswana which was not met.
This substantiates that sweet potatoes were also part of the crops that the country need to explore and extensively commercialize to generate more revenues.
The value chains supply study conducted by Silas Ochieng on behalf of the Micro Finance Unit (MFU) said the growing of drought resistant sweet potatoes has been given significant attention by the government and other stakeholders.
“In 2014, a project supported by the Taiwan Technical Mission achieved the following, established sweet potatoes nurseries which were 20 hectares in four regions, organised sweet potatoes block farming and planted 15 hectors in each region, totally planted 67.3 hectares, produced 2 755 bags of sweet potatoes veins from farmers own nurseries and extended planting to 46.67 hectares,” said the study.
Study
The study said there was hope to meet the demand through the collaboration with four sweet potato schemes guided by the Swaziland Water and Agriculture Development (SWADE) and the Taiwan Technical Mission who have improved quality produce to meet even the crop’s offseason demand.
Meanwhile, the study revealed bottlenecks affecting the crop production which were low production, low yields and low access to high and competitive markets.
As a response to these challenges, the study recommended the expansion of current areas under production and encouraging the use of inputs for optional yields.
Since land size under sweet potatoes production was very small, the study recommended that it would be imperative to organise farmers into production clusters for aggregated production.
Lastly, it said the initiatives being undertaken by Taiwan high commission was a promising route to linking farmers to competitive markets.
