SWEET POTATO PRODUCTION IN MALAWI

Sweet potato is one of the crops grown in Malawi & it is the World’s seventh most Important food crop (Mussoline & Wilkie, 2017) & more than 100 countries in South East Asia, Africa, Oceania, Latin America regions & China. The World’s leading sweet potato producer with more than 75% of the world’s production is China (FAO 2016). Ipomea Mbatatas is the scientific name of this crop & it Originates from the Central America & is a dicotyledonous plant which belongs to the family of convolvulaceae (Shekhar et., al 2015). Sweet potatoes are root vegetables that have a creamy texture & a sweet spicy flavor that makes them ideal for savory dishes. There are two variety of sweet potatoes namely; local variety and hybrid variety. Local variety include; Samosa, kamchiputu, Korea, kachamba, kenya etc. & can either be white or yellow inside & outside can be reddish, purplish, white & orange. On the other hand, hybrid include kadya ubwerere, zondeni, anaakwanire, muthuthu, kaphulira, sunga banja, chipika, mthetsanjala, loyal choice etc. & they are good for consumption & small scale business. Here are some of the importance of the crop; It helps to reduce food insecurity in a way that people can use potatoes as their food instead of maize staple crop) which is mostly scarce (it can be eaten as breakfast, as lunch or supper according to the way of preparation).

Providing money is another importance of the crop, this happens in a way that after harvesting it can be sold and have the money to assist in other family issues like purchasing of basic needs like clothes, food, paying school fees etc. in so doing the faming becomes so beneficial. Sweet potatoes can be processed to produce flour for either baking or cooking. This can help in reducing hunger because potato flour can be used in baking or cooking of food hence no hunger can be experienced. It can help in reducing malnutrition, when the under five children are eating bright orange potatoes & those with pale cream flesh, they cannot suffer from malnutrition because the required food nutrients needed by the body of the children are contained in the crop.

The issue of food insecurity is being experienced because of over dependence on the crops that needs more amount of rainfall like the maize & the groundnuts but it also gets affected by the climate change like the cyclones (Ana, Freddy, Gombe), floods, not forgetting drought. All of these are making it difficult for the country to produce as required hence need to migrate to sweet potatoes because it is easy to produce & require moderate rainfall. Sweet potatoes has the following advantages over maize crop;

It does not favor one type of soil, it do well in all types of soils. It does not require large amount of inputs as compared to maize for instance maize need pesticides, fertilizers, seeds from the shop which is also expensive, labor etc. It is drought tolerant/strong resistance capabilities for different environments. Mostly it does not get affected by diseases or pests. It is very easy to produce. It is cheap to purchase seeds (sweet potato plants). It can be processed to make recipes like mashes sweet potato recipe, see the picture below: It is highly yielding. The sweet potato leaves can be used as relish which is rich in proteins, iron, vitamins. Therefore, sweet potatoes are considered as typical food security crop for deprived populations as this can be harvest little by little over a long period of time (chandrasekara & Kumar, 2016). Tuberous roots of potatoes are large, starchy, sweet-tasting & consumed as root vegetable. It can help in reducing unemployment rate because many people can be employed in the industry of processing sweet potatoes into flour or other products. It can also help in earning foreign currency (forex) that is after exporting the processed products hence leading to development of the country. This is how it is produced; It is produced during rainy season, there is need to have seeds (sweet potato plants) & then you cut them into pieces depending on the eyespot (one-piece need to have 3 or 4 eye spots) & after cutting it is taken to the farm or garden for planting. And when planting, there need to place the longest part into the soil & leave one eyespot out but it should be equally spaced from one planting station to another (25-30cm apart). After that, the farmer wait for the time of weeding & the weeding can take place depending on the presence of weeds & it can happen twice in one farming season (this helps to increase the yield harvest because like every crop do, sweet potatoes does not do well in weeds). The commercial farmers prefer to apply fertilizer to the crop so that it can do more than better because they aim at making money after selling & it takes 3-4 months to mature. In conclusion, sweet potatoes have the possibility of curbing the food insecurity in Malawi, ending malnutrition, reducing the rate of poverty & also has the possibility of bringing forex to the country & promoting development. So Government need to have awareness campaigns on how good this farming is.