Abstract:

Integrated Sweet potato Management through farmer field schools was incorporated into the already established IPPM FFS (Integrated Pest and Production Management Farmer Field Schools) programmed in East Africa. It was aimed at promoting sustainable sweet potato production and post-harvest management. After four months field implementation of this technology-based and farmer education project, partnership was forged with the VITAA (Vitamin A Africa) initiative to disseminate and promote commercial production of orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) varieties. Since then, a cumulative total of 1622 bags of vines each containing 1800 2400 cuttings ready for planting worth Uganda Shs 9,732,000 (US$ 4866) have been distributed to farmers through farmer-oriented organizations within Soroti district. More than 600 bags of OFSP vines have been distributed to farmers through FFS and VITAA promoting partner organizations. Whereas the other partners reported complete crop failure due to the adverse weather conditions during the first crop cycle, 2 FFS managed to produce orange-fleshed roots for processing and delivered about 1 metric ton of chips to Maganjo processing factory in Kampala. Of an estimated total of 72 acres of OFSP planted during the second cycle, 20% of the planting material was supplied by the FFS vine bank plots. Two sub-counties have priotised sweet potato as a commercial crop through the NAADS programmed. CIP provided two chipper machines to FFS and other sweet potato producer groups in a bid to transform sweet potato into an industrial crop and is spearheading the search for linkages to find alternative markets for chips. Although the pilot venture into commercialization through processing did not appear to be profitable, the idea of selling OFSP to boarding schools and other institutions seems to be a more promising alternative market.