Potato industry continues to experience inadequate supply of quality potato seed of preferred varieties, forcing farmers to continually multiply low-quality ordinary potato seed.
According to a special report, The National Potato Strategy of 2021-2025 released by Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives, despite the many varieties of potato seed developed, certified and released into the market, many farmers are still not accessing the seed, although a slight improvement has been recorded recently.
The report cites lack of foundation potato seed that can be multiplied as a challenge as well as perishability nature of the potato seed, which makes storage difficult and distribution complicated, since the conventional distribution channels cannot be used.
It explains that good and efficient distribution needs heavy investments such as building of cold stores, whose absence, among other factors, means low accessibility of the seed.
