How the colonialists soured sweet, Irish potato marketing

Sweet potato was introduced in Kenya and other parts of Africa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.It originated from Central America where it was domesticated around 2500 BC.

By the time the British colonised Kenya, most African communities grew sweet potatoes as a staple crop.

Western Kenya communities had a similar name for it: Rabuon among the Luo, amabuoni among the Luhya, mapuoni among the Kisii and rabuonik among the Kipsigis and Nandi.

These communities used sweet potato as an anti-locust, anti-drought, anti-famine and standby crop to be eaten with sour milk, before they harvested sorghum, millet and maize.

Jomo Kenyatta in his book Facing Mt Kenya (1938) writes that among the Kikuyu, both men and women cultivated their own sweet potato (ngwaci) vines for use by the family.

After very many years of use as a staple, the crop also acquired ritual value in the community.

In the 1920s and 1930s, for example, it was used, along with soil and sugarcane to make individuals, who registered as members of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) to swear that they would remain loyal to KCA’s ideals and not reveal its secrets to colonial authorities and their agents under whatever circumstance.

The Kikuyu would later turn out to be the largest producers of English (Irish) potatoes, which were first introduced by the Swahili and Nubian soldiers who helped the British to establish a military garrison in the early 1890s at Fort Smith (later Dagoretti) in Kiambu.

At the time, the Kikuyu had not recovered from the ravages of disease and famine, which also affected most other communities in Kenya. It is not surprising that they went to work at the Fort where they adopted English potatoes.

EXPERIMENTAL FARMS

The crop not only found ready consumers in the area but was also immediately taken to nearby Nairobi for sale. When European farmers arrived, those who settled in Central Province and more particularly, Naivasha and Nakuru, grew no more than 30 per cent of the entire crop. Their African squatters added to the quantity grown.

Meanwhile, from Dagoretti, English potato growing rapidly spread to the rest of Kiambu and the other districts in Central province like Nyeri and Fort Hall (Muranga).

The Department of Agriculture imported many varieties of potato seeds for trial on its own and Local Native Council experimental farms before their distribution to areas most-suited for their growth. 

The varieties included the Baron, Kerr’s Pink, Alannah, Great Scot, Arrom, Banner and Tinwall Perfection. Those that did well were distributed in localities that suited them, including in the higher altitudes of Kisii in Nyanza province and Sotik in the Rift Valley.

Later in the 1940s and 1950s, the English potato was introduced in Machakos, Wundanyi in Taita Hills, Meru, Sotik and Keiyo.

Pest attacks, which caused blight, were an occasional menace that the Department of Agriculture had to manage. Similar attention was not paid to sweet potatoes in spite of the fact that it is far tastier, more nutritious and resilient, and has more uses.

Its production and consumption declined. In the end, Central province became the major English potato producer and exporter in the country. It supplied areas like Nyanza with potatoes for both consumption and seeds.

This is what led the Luo to refer to the Kikuyu as “Jo Rabuon” - the potato folk - a name that has stuck to date.

The quantity of English potato exports from Kenya increased rapidly from 1,554 tonnes in 1920 to 4,138 in 1929. In spite of the advent of the depression in 1929, production soared from 2,251 tonnes in 1930 to 8,982 in 1939 when the Second World War broke out.

This is because the colonial state was determined to stimulate African commodity production in the belief that it entailed lower capital outlay than European settler agriculture. 

Secondly, since prices of other commodities like maize and wattle in Central province were occasionally lower than that of English potatoes and peasant farmers in the region had to meet their tax and other obligations, their salvation was to grow more potatoes. The crop was readily exported to neighbouring Uganda, India, Mauritius and Madagascar.

RELATIVE DECLINE

During the war, exports averaged about 8,750 tonnes. A large proportion of the total potato production, both fresh and dehydrated, was supplied to meet the demand of Britain’s military forces in Kenya and wherever they were stationed.

Dried vegetable factories were established at Karatina and Kerugoya to meet military demand. The cooling and shipping facilities in Mombasa were expanded. 

After the war, stagnation in potato export was caused by competition from other producing countries and the relative decline in the quality of Kenya’s agricultural products generally. 

The situation was so serious that the government hired the services of R. H. Bassett, Commissioner for Development of Agricultural Marketing, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) government, to come and make recommendations regarding the development of agricultural marketing in Kenya.

Bassett recommended the establishment of produce marketing boards and co-operative societies, including potatoes as well.

In the case of potatoes, their main function was to ensure the production and selection of high quality products to compete favourably in the export market. 

He also stated that these bodies should represent producers from the exploitative tendencies of middlemen and other brokers. The board, he added, should ensure that the Karatina Dehydrated Vegetable Factory should not be closed. 

The European settler domination of commodity production and their influence on Kenya’s agricultural policy militated against Bassett’s recommendations.

The production and export of English potatoes continued to decline between 1946 and 1954 when Kenya exported 4,776 and 687 tonnes, respectively. The figures were lower than the pre-war exports.

The Swynnerton Plan of 1955 attempted to intensify agricultural production through Africanising the ownership of some land for purposes of smallholder production, providing loans and extension to African farmers.

Unfortunately, the plan gave higher priority to fruit and vegetable canning and excluded English potatoes. International companies were invited to invest in the venture. 

The smallholder potato growers were left to struggle on their own and at the mercy of the middlemen brokers Basset had wanted to protect them from. 

To make matters worse, the Mau Mau uprising and the resultant emergency situation interrupted the production and marketing of English potatoes in Central province.

Today, English potato growing and marketing continues to be individual’s undertaking. Most smallholders are so helpless that they hawk their produce quite cheaply to buyers by the roadside. 

Some smallholders allow brokers to cheaply purchase the entire produce from the farm and harvest it themselves. 

This is also happening to sweet potatoes whose growers in Kabondo and Rodi Kopany in Homa Bay County, and in counties like Nyamira, Bungoma and Kericho are struggling to revive after many years of neglect by the government.

Prof Ndege teaches at Moi University, Eldoret,