A small farmer development project launched by 2017 Tutu Fellow Samuel Kariuki as part of his Fellowship is bringing new hope to a troubled area of Kenya. The area is one of the country's most populated rural districts and once a leading coffee producer. But social decline has led to poverty and hopelessness, something Sam is turning around by giving locals tools to succeed. In an outgrower program that occurred in conjunction with the Fort Hall Eye project, he recently shared some examples. One is of a farmer growing organic sweet potatoes.
He said that a typical sweet potato, planted in the traditional way, weighs about 750 grams. The lead small farmer in his outgrower program has produced a 6 kg sweet potato (see photo top) and over a 90-day period, earned about $3,600 USD from his patch of land.
This is a respectable income for a small-scale rurual farmer. Samuel says that a key lesson that has been learned is how focused, intense agronomy and market linkage can help fight poverty in rural Africa. Sweet potatoes are a tropical root that grow from vines, which are cheap. Grown organically without fertilizer or pesticides, profit margins are good when growing for market. You can also read more about the first harvest from the project by his small farmers here in AFLI News.
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