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Edgar Vhera
Agriculture Specialist Writer
The Government is pulling out all stops to localise seed potato production and put paid to imports of the commodity that are bleeding the economy, as the country moves to consolidate the 2010 ban on table and processing potato imports.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development permanent secretary Dr John Basera revealed recently on the backdrop of increasing potato imports recorded in recent times.
“There is an increase in potato seed imports, only for now, while we are working on localising potato seed production towards a 100 percent import substitution scenario.
“We have since closed our borders on table and processing potato imports,” said Dr Basera.
Dr Basera’s comments reinforce the sentiments he made during the launch of the Potato Value Chain Financing Facility (PVCFF) in Norton last year when he said the country’s number one export strategy was import substitution.
Statistics from Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) show that fresh or chilled potato imports increased 392 percent from US$2,6 million in 2019 to US$12,9 million in 2022.
Increased potato seed imports seem to be militating against Government’s decision to ban table potato imports with the objective of protecting local farmers from unfair competition from cheap products that had flooded the local market.
Seed Services Institute head Mr Edmore Mtetwa said to support increased local potato production, the Government had allowed supervised imports of certified potato seed by seed houses to complement local seed production.
“This attracted foreign breeders who started to engage local seed houses to register their varieties with Seed Services Institute.
“Consequently, in the last 10 years, various seed houses registered a total of 25 high yielding, table, chipping and crisping potato varieties after going through the necessary multi-locational adaptability trials,” said Mr Mtetwa.
To further incentivise local potato production, the Government facilitated registration of new players in the seed supply side and to date the total number of seed houses producing seed potatoes has grown from only one in 2009 to 12 by 2022, added Mr Mtetwa.
“In addition to this, the Ministry of Agriculture has formerly registered 25 new and high yielding potato varieties over the past nine years after they passed mandatory local adaptability tests. This brings the total number of potato varieties registered in Zimbabwe to 32, giving farmers a wide choice for planting materials. Among these new varieties are specialised ones for the processing industry being used for crisping and chipping,” Mr Mtetwa continued.
The Tobacco Research Board, under the auspices of Zimbabwe Potato Micro-Propagation Association (ZPMA), has been designated as a potato seed certifying agent mandated to produce and market potato seed.
It has a state-of-the-art laboratory and purpose-built green-house hardening facilities for commercial production of clean disease-free potato plant-lets using tissue culture technology into mini tubers, which are later transferred to the field as generation one (G1) to generation four (G4) for the production of ware and table potatoes.
ZPMA has contracted potato seed growers in suitable areas to assist in the seed multiplication programme.
The potato seed multiplication programme is meant to truncate the critical shortage of the potato seed, which has led the country to importing 60 percent of its requirements, as a result of the reduced production of seed from the Nyanga quarantine area.
The evident result of the above Government interventions is the exponential increase in potato production from 52 000 tonnes in 2010 to 534 543 tonnes in 2022 as demonstrated in the graph.
Online Reporter