Farmers in Kabondo, Homa Bay County displaying their sweet potatoes for sale along the main road. USAID-KHCP is working on a sustainable marketing system to connect farmers to local, regional and international markets. Photo by Fintrac Inc

Farmers in Kabondo, Homa Bay County displaying their sweet potatoes for sale along the main road. USAID-KHCP is working on a sustainable marketing system to connect farmers to local, regional and international markets. Photo by Fintrac Inc

A Kenyan export initiative is to see the country’s sweet potato production increase.

The USAID Kenya Horticulture Competitiveness Project (KHCP) is working with Sunripe Ltd, a grower, processor and exporter of horticulture and Business Initiatives Against Poverty (BISEP) to build export capacity across the country.

BISEP is a partner in the expansion of sweet potato production and the partnership is combining to help 48 farmers in Kibwezi, Mtito Andei and Makindu plant commercial orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) varieties (Vitaa and Kabode).

The activity targets production and export of 20 tonnes of OFSP per week, starting in September.

The project completed an environmental review for sweet potato multiplication at the Sunripe Misty farm in Nyeri.

The review targets environmental compliance and mitigation measures including monitoring of the nurseries as per USAID standards. The review indicated that the sites audited are meeting the requirements.

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