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Tariro Stacey Gatsi

AT least 4 386 000 sweet potato vines have been distributed under the Presidential Sweet Potato Programme, jumping from 3 334 000 in January, as the crop demonstrates its fast-growing popularity, as a food security booster of food security enhancement and income generation capabilities.

SWEET potato vines distribution has witnessed a significant surge increasing from to a staggering as an ambitious effort to bolster national production and ultimately enhancing food security.

Under the Presidential Sweet Potato Programme, 1,8 million households are set to benefit from the elite virus-free sweet potato vines at distributed as 50 vines per household which translates to 90 million sweet potatoes by 2025.

Agricultural and Rural Development Advisory Services (ARDAS) principal horticulture specialist, Mrs Hilda Manditsvara, said the programme was initiated to enhance food and nutrition status, offer diversity of food crops available for consumption and as a source of income.

She added: “A strategic initiative to have vines distributed to farmers with available water to sustain production was instituted especially to serve as nursery sites for future multiplication and distribution of vines within provinces. A total of 4 386 000 vines has been distributed since the inception of the programme.”

Mrs Manditsvara also added that nursery sites have been established in some nutritional gardens and irrigation scheme.

However, Mrs Manditsvara stressed that area under sweet potato and production was poised to increase given the availability of the virus free, high yielding varieties from Tobacco Research Board (TRB), however the harsh weather conditions have resulted in expected low production and productivity.

According to the Crops, Livestock, and Fisheries Assessment Report (Pre-harvest) CLAFA-1 for 2023/24, the number of hectares planted in 2022/23 sweet potato hectrage decreased by 63 percent from 27,860 in 2022/23 to 10,413 in 2023/24.

The distribution of the sweet potato plants follows Government’s push to move citizens from overreliance on wheat bread and embrace other nutritional options.

Meanwhile, in January 2024, 3 334 000 were distributed in January while doubling the amount from 310 000 a week earlier under the Presidential Horticulture Recovery and Growth Plan’s (HRGP).

Also the HRGP’s rural horticulture transformation plan seeks to create and sustain a US$1, 217 billion rural horticulture economy by 2025 and a US$3, 5 billion economy by 2030.

The increasing interest in sweet potato as a food security and cash crop has stimulated research and development projects aimed at realising the full potential of the crop.

In a recent X post (formerly twitter), Kutsaga explained that sweet potatoes grow well under marginal environmental conditions such as low rainfall and relatively poor soils and also grows quickly covering the ground thereby reducing the need for weeding.

The country requires about 318 080 tonnes of sweet potatoes annually and the crop is generally an easy to farm venture that requires limited inputs, not capital intensive and can be planted on small pieces of land, though it can yield up to 30 tonnes per hectare.