By Norah Musega
museganorah@gmail.com
Migori county government potato plant remain locked as farmers continue to witness losses amid harassment by middle men in the county.
The project was launched earlier this year by European Union ambassador Henrietta Geiger, the then Permanent Secretary in the ministry of devolution Julius Korir and former Migori governor Okoth Obado.
Sweet potato farmers shifted from tobacco farming in 2016 and started planting the crop in anticipation of the launch of the factory which can process over 100 tons of sweet potatoes daily.
“We got quality vines for farming since 2016, organized ourselves in groups and started planting sweet potatoes which take only three months to mature, but nothing has materialized from the factory,” Samson Wankuru, the manager of Kuria West Sweet Potato Sacco said.
The Sacco has 750 registered farmers, some left tobacco farming and has slowed down sweet potato farming over uncertainty of opening of the factory.
“We hoped the factory would offer a ready market when it was launched but soon after it was launched the big men closed it and left us to continue being harassed by middlemen from Nairobi,” Wankuru said.
Sospeter Rioba a farmer said he planted sweet potatoes in five hectares of land, he noted that middlemen pay as low as Sh1,800 for two sacks, insisting on taking only medium size tubers leaving behind losses to them.
Following up on the matter by Migori county assembly agricultural committee chair Felix Okwanyo told the Sacco review that they had passed a supplementary budget of 15 million which is already with the department of agriculture to help it purchase potatoes for the plant from local farmers.
Okwanyo urged the farmers to exercise patience as the department had to set and come up with necessary modalities of how to manage the plant since it was set up by the previous regime and those currently in office had just gotten in hence the need to come up with long lasting structures for operations to commence.
“Let us allow the new team at the county’s department of agriculture to see the plant commence its operations in a stable manner instead of doing things in a hurry which might end up collapsing the economy of the county.” said Okwanyo.
Clackson Mwita, MCA for Masaba ward where the factory is located also confirmed the agriculture committee chair’s sentiments saying the operations are expected to kick start operations soon.
“We hope work will start before March next year so as to avoid the factory lying idle for a full year, we want work to kick off,” Nwita said.
He said the factory was to open a market not only in Migori, but the region and several farmers are looking forward to its opening.
Weeks ago, Migori agriculture executive Lucas Mosenda and the county team visited the factory which unlocked the supplementary budget amount but no definite date has been given to start operations at the facility officially.
Failure by the factory to start operations has also affected youths who were looking forward to be employed.
