One of the challenges faced by small-scale producers of potatoes is storage of potato seeds. Most of smallholder farmers obtain potato seeds from previous harvest, and the duration between one planting season to another one takes about five months. During this period of five months’ potato reserved as seeds are stored on ground with poor ventilations.
An interview with at least 20 smallholder farmers in Njombe region indicated high loss of potato seeds (about half of stored seeds) due to poor storage practices, the farmers also indicated challenges in germination for poorly stored seeds.
To address the challenge of potato seeds storage, MVIWATA facilitated a construction of potato seeds storage facility at Itunduma village in Mtwago ward, Njombe region. The aim of constructing the storage facilities was to demonstrate simple techniques for potato seed storage using materials available in Itunduma village.
During the monitoring visit which was conducted at Njombe in May 2019, MVIWATA recognized a greater use of potato seed storage facility constructed by MVIWATA with more demand to store potato seeds than the capacity of the storage facility, an average of 9 tons of potatoes seeds are stored annually. It was found that about ten (10) smallholder farmers have learned and constructed their own storage facility almost similar to that constructed by MVIWATA (each with capacity to store 4.5 tons of seeds). The monitoring visit team paid a visit to two smallholder farmers who constructed potato seed storage facility.
From the previous year (2018) experience, smallholder farmers who applied this practice witnessed that using the improved potato seeds storage facilities resulted to no loss of potato seeds and the germination capacity of potato seeds stored on improved storage facilities was high compared to potato seeds stored locally.
Apart from these achievements by smallholder farmers who use improved practices for potato seeds storage, there are farmers within the village and near-by villages who have not received information about this practices and are still using poor storage practices.
To support more smallholder farmers to apply improved potato seeds storage facilities, MVIWATA will plan to facilitate practical learning for smallholder farmers on improved potato seeds storage in the respective areas with the aim of enhancing application of improved storage facility by potatoes producers and minimizing loss.
