A number of times farmers go through the struggle of carrying and working with bulky vines to be planted in their garden which then don’t produce as much yield as they wanted or expected after all this struggle. This low yield is most times attached to the quality of vines or roots that are transplanted to the garden that may also be disease carriers.
Through the ICOPSEA project whose development objective is “to improve food security and incomes of smallholder farming communities in East Africa through improved access to quality seed for increased sweet potato productivity and marketing, and hence the crop’s competitiveness”, this struggle is being lessened
The vines and roots that are sold out through the project are tactfully developed through the hands of experts before they are flagged ready and healthy to be planted in a garden. This ensure that the vines and roots that are sold out to farmers are of quality hence reducing the chances of having low quality yields
Although mentioned earlier that the low yield is attached to quality of the vines transplanted, at times it is because of the poor preparation of the garden. Under the ICOPSEA project apart from the sweet potatoes farmers accessing quality seeds, they also get the privilege of having their gardens inspected before the roots are planted which help prevent cases of planting vines in gardens that are not well prepared to produce the kind of yields expected and if found not yet ready, they are advised accordingly on what step to take to meet the right standard.
In between planting and harvesting a lot can happen, diseases, pests to mention but a few. The Viazi app is designed in a way that farmers can upload their queries or issues and this can be addressed by different experts in the field
Join the wide community of sweet potato farmers in east Africa and become the best farmer you could be through the Viazi vitamu app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=icopsea.sweetpotatoesafrica.viazi&hl=en)
