Aeroponics set to improve potato yields in Kenya

The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) has introduced a new farming technology for breeding multiple disease free potato tubers in a bid to achieve a widespread take-off in productivity for the country’s potato farmers.

In Africa, according to a 2007 report by Food Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Egypt has the highest potato output at 2.6 million tonnes.

Kenya ranks 8th, harvesting around 0.8 million tonnes a year from an estimated 120,000 hectares. This translates to an average yield per hectare of 6.7 tonnes.

But output could be higher, says Kari, which reports that currently only one to two per cent of Kenyan farmers use certified potato breeds.

Over 90 per cent of Kenyan farmers still plant potato varieties with an optimum yield of only seven to 10 tonnes per hectare.

The varieties are also susceptible to diseases and virus attacks and are not economical in the long run.

But the challenge of making better breeds available to farmers is hampered by the low numbers of reproduction laboratories in Kenya.

Only the Agricultural Development Corporation in Molo and Kisima Farm in Timau breed new potato varieties.

Meanwhile, many private breeders shy away from commercial potato tuber reproduction due to the high costs involved.

Most local private breeders opt to breed seeds such maize, which are less expensive.

Kari hopes that by importing a high-yield potato breeding technology it can attract more private breeders into the industry.

Dubbed aeroponics, the new technology grows potato tubers in “air” without the use of soil.

Adopted by Kari from Lima in Peru last year, the technology is an improvement on the conventional way of breeding potato tubers from the soil.