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Appropriate Rural Development Agriculture Program (ARDAP), Majasio Human Development,
(MAHUDE) and Farm Concern International.
Different stakeholders along the OFSP product value chain include farmers, seed multipliers,
market traders, extension agents, processors, media, and community based organisations.
Promotion of sweet potato now occurs country wide, with greatest activity in Western Kenya.
KARI and CIP continue to undertake research in developing new varieties, to obtain combinations
of dry matter, β-carotene, disease and pest resistance with appropriate yield and taste attributes.
The Mama SASHA Project (2009–14), a component of CIP’s sweet potato activities, links health
with agriculture, targeting women who require pre-natal care. Such women are provided with
vouchers at clinics for obtaining sweet potato planting material. The vouchers are exchanged with
farmers for six-kilogram starter packs of sweet potato vines. The farmers are then reimbursed at
about two US dollars for each six-kilogram pack distributed. In the first four months of distribution,
836 women received vouchers from four health facilities, with more than 500 vouchers being
redeemed vine starter packs. Follow-up visits to the homes of 216 women found that 81 percent
of them had planted the vines (DONATA, 2011). Dissemination of New Agricultural Technologies
in Africa (DONATA), a network supported by FARA enhancing the uptake and adoption of the OFSP
technologies, in Kenya Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, has been using an IP approach
since 2008. Two IPs have been formed each with its own institutional arrangements to support
the up-scaling process (DONATA, 2011).
An NGO, Farm Concern International has initiated sweet potato promotions in Nairobi grocery
stores to assist in developing the urban market for OFSP.
The public sector, private sector, NGOs and farmer groups have all played key roles in the
success of OFSP including the following:
• Approval and funding by the public sector of research and development agenda from
various players, and registration of NGO efforts
• KARI and CIP spearheading the research effort into the development of the OFSP, fine
tuning of technologies and quality control
• The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and various NGOs are part of innovation platforms
in western Kenya with the MoA being responsible for technology dissemination and
up-scaling in the innovation platforms
• Farmers link up through the SASHA project to provide planting material although
commercial multiplication remains to be achieved
• Private traders purchase the crop where commercialisation has taken root, like in Kabondo
in South Nyanza and in Busia and Bungoma in Western Province. Concern International
also links traders to markets.
Several cottage industries process sweet potatoes with Busia Farmers’ Training Institute, a
government organisation, training farmers in many aspects of sweet potato utilisation
• Financing of the enterprises is by private arrangements, other than in the SASHA project
which funds the purchase of planting material for mothers in pre-natal stage
30 Agricultural Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa