Grabbed land stalls potato plan

Grabbed research land has stalled a Sh318 million potato revitalisation programme that would have seen the sector become a major employer and contributor to food security.

A five-year potato sector master plan developed at an estimated Sh50 million since 2003 has been turned down just before reaching the Cabinet for what the planners call flimsy reasons.

High quality seeds

The plan, which is part of a greater government strategy to revitalise agriculture, is primarily based on producing adequate clean and high quality seeds for farmers. However, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) cannot do so because of lack of land for both research and seed multiplication.

For example, the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC), which is mandated to multiply potato seeds, can only produce about 425 bags annually against a demand of about 40,000 bags. In the 1990s, some 19,000 acres belonging to ADC were given out to individuals.

Unable to recover the land, the government recently bought some 700 acres for ADC, but this is hardly enough for seed multiplication because the corporation requires a minimum of 3,000 acres. Because seed multiplication requires rotational farming, only about 100 acres are available for production at any given time.

The Kari-Tigoni centre, in charge of developing and producing the basic seed for onward multiplication by ADC, produces less than one per cent of the national demand. This, says a five-year potato master plan developed by the government, has made farmers depend on substandard seed, which is low-yielding and susceptible to pests and diseases.

In the 1990s, the research centre lost about 180 of the 240 acres of land allocated in 1967. Recently, it got back some 17 acres, which the Five-Year Master Plan 2009-2014 says are not enough for basic seed development. According to the centre’s director, Dr Jackson Kabira, it would be impossible for the proposed strategic plan to succeed without adequate land for seed development and multiplication.

But now farmers’ organisations and even donors are surprised that the government has suspended the strategic plan even before it starts. The plan should now be in its second year of implementation to contribute towards the Millennium Development Goals. The specific millennium goals include employment and wealth creation, revitalising agriculture and food and nutrition security. Agriculture secretary Wilson Songa says that the plan that includes a national potato policy has been put on hold despite reaching Cabinet memo stage.

Addressing a recent meeting of the planners who included farmers’ organisations, donors, research institutions and government officials, Dr Songa said that the process had been put on hold so that the State can come up with a policy that covers all tuber crops. However, the participants, according to minutes from the meeting, were not buying the idea, instead accusing the government of dragging its feet and offering flimsy reasons for the delay.

“The participants asked Dr Songa to reconsider the decision and de-link potatoes from the other tubers,” says the minutes. However, the Agriculture secretary said this was difficult and asked the participants not to lose hope.

Privy to stoppage

Senior researchers who have been involved in the policy development and are privy to its stoppage say the delay is occasioned by powerful individuals in government and politicians who do not want to tackle the grabbed land issue.

“Without land, the policy will not succeed, and the government is unwilling or unable to reclaim the land, hence find it easier to delay the process,” one researcher, who cannot be named because of job security, told the Nation in an interview.

The planners, according to the minutes, were dismayed by the way the government was handling the potato policy. “Their concern was that the delay in passing the policy would end up negating all the work that has gone into the process since 2003.”

Vietnam study tour

The researchers estimated that more than Sh50 million had gone into the effort, which included a study tour to Vietnam. Potatoes, they argued, being the second most important food crop in Kenya after maize, should not be equated with other tubers, like yams which are yet to gain a serious foothold on the dinner table.

“This is like equating maize with millet or napier grass just because they are from the same family of grasses. This could delay the process by another decade,” said the source. Meeting participants are also said to have been puzzled by why the government had stopped the process, yet money was still being spent, to change its thinking.