The Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) has launched a crackdown on traders violating the 50-kgs rule in the packaging of Irish potatoes even as the government moves with speed to enforce the 2021 potato regulations.
This comes as the agriculture regulator announced it had trained 254 crop inspectors to help in the crackdown against those found violating Chapter 16 of the Crops Act which banned packaging potatoes in extended bags.
AFA Crop Inspectorate Director Ferdinand Masinde said the crackdown was aimed at ensuring packaging in the required standard of 50kgs was achieved and enforcement would be executed in the entire value chain from the farm to the markets.
Masinde said the authority was ensuring all Irish potato transporters are registered, a bag of potato weighs 50kgs and all storage units and go-downs are registered in order to ensure high standards in the whole value chain are maintained.
Masinde said they had sensitised stakeholders on the regulations and expected value chain players would comply with the regulations by reversing the past scenarios where potatoes were usually weighed in 110-kilogram bags which subjected farmers to huge losses.
Standardisation issues are said to have started long before the creation of AFA with by-laws adopted by defunct municipal and county councils through Legal Notice No 113 of 2008, following the 2005 standardisation policy which set Sh2,000 as fine or a term not exceeding six months imprisonment.
The law required officers in charge of markets to block any entry of the produce for sale in extended bags.
Masinde said the inspectors would monitor production, weighing, handling and processing of the potato produce to ensure compliance.
He was speaking during a meeting that brought together agricultural experts from Nakuru, Meru, Nyandarua, Narok, Nandi, and Nairobi counties.
Twenty other produce including legumes, cereals, roots and tubers are also covered by the law.
AFA’s announcement comes at a time when potato growing counties have been struggling with ways to enforce the law crafted to protect farmers from exploitation.
The authority is charged with appointing inspectors to ensure all stakeholders adhere to all potato guidelines and regulations.
Masinde said the law allows inspectors in potato growing counties to seize and detain Irish potatoes packaged or transported in a manner that does not conform to the regulations at the cost of the offender.
“We are aware that brokers have mismanaged this industry, we are here now to protect the interest of farmers' funds to ensure they get what they deserve,” he said.
Nakuru County Executive Committee Member (CECM) for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Leonard Bor said agriculture officers have been sensitising the farmers on the potato packaging regulations through barazas, field days, and exhibitions.
He said the county government was working with Egerton University, the National Potato Council of Kenya (NPCK) and Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO) to help potato farmers reduce production costs and boost their incomes.
He said the partnership was aligned with climate-smart innovations and technologies geared towards cushioning farmers against climate change challenges like drought, floods, diseases and pests.
According to Bor, the initiative’s objective was to promote sustainable potato production through adoption of climate-smart potato farming practices, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) use of certified seeds and promotion of climate-smart agriculture technologies and innovations.
Bor said the county government was supporting activities aligned to climate-smart innovations to ensure farmers adopt climate-smart agricultural practices and technologies that are geared towards cushioning them against the challenges they are facing.
The CECM said climate-smart agriculture practices included development and use of drought and heat-tolerant potato varieties, finding use for waste products from potatoes, training on the costs and benefits of crop insurance, reduction of post-harvest losses through support of agricultural machinery and adoption of biological pesticides.
Bor said Governor Susan Kihika’s administration was supporting initiatives to enable more farmers access certified potato seeds to help increase food production to enhance food security.
He said they were committed through public-private partnerships to increase high quality certified potato seed by 25 per cent through rapid multiplication, increased field seed bulking and capacity building of commercial seed growers in the county.
Agricultural Development Corporation’s (ADC) seed development project in Nakuru’s Molo Subcounty is the main centre of potato seed production, storage and distribution in the country with the Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organisation (KALRO) potato research in Tigoni in Kiambu County supplementing the Molo project.
National Potato Council of Kenya (NPCK) CEO Wachira Kaguongo said over the past three years the seed supply had been erratic affecting production of the crop which is a scheduled crop under the Crops Act of 2013.
Nakuru is the second largest producer of the potato crop in the country accounting for 18.9 per cent of national production.
Other top potato producing counties are Elgeyo Marakwet, Makueni, Embu, Tharaka Nithi, Kajiado, Samburu and Kwale.
According to the NPCK, in the country, the crop is cultivated by more than 800,000 farmers with a total production ranging from 1 to 1.4 million tonnes worth between Sh30 to 40 billion per year. Small-scale farmers account for about 83 per cent of total production.
A study done by the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) has established that poor planting material is behind diminishing potato production in Kenya.
According to agricultural experts in seed production, only about eight per cent of middle-level farmers with lands measuring between 10 acres and above rely on seeds supplied by ADC Molo project.
Others opted to get clean tubers from private seed producers like Sygenta, Kisima, Suera, Agreco, GTIL, Gen-Biotech, Singus Enterprises and the Narok-based Kimingi Farm.