I must admit, sack potato farming in Zimbabwe is my obsession. It started from Inyanga a few days ago when we had contracts with potato farmers with a friend Francis. All the farmers had to do was farm potatoes and all we had to do was find a market for the potatoes. We made a lot of money but I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to farm them on my own.
Fast forward to last year, I teamed up with my uncle and we experimented with our first batch. Things didn’t go on so well. We consulted a lot of Agronomists until I met Aaron and a gentleman I will for now refer to is Agronomist S. My Uncle and I worked with these two gentlemen throughout our second and third crop. As if by fate, I later on realized that Aaron and I had the same measure of Potato obsession. We went all out on our experiments. We started experimenting with potatoes in bags and subjected the plant to different conditions. What we have learned is priceless. It could be the answer to most disappointments being faced by the new age sack potato farmers in Zimbabwe.
A day never passes without me getting a call from a farmer asking why their sack potato isn’t flowering, why it’s wilting despite applying enough water etc. The questions are so varied. Sometimes I will be having the answers and sometimes I won’t. When everything fails, I have three gentlemen who give me three different solutions from three different pespectives. A professor who works with a research Institute, an experienced commercial potato farmer and a communal potato farmer who work with limited resources but with an amazing yield. Iam trying to sanitize their wealth of experience and come up with a simple guide to successful potato farming. We are half way through with the book and It should be ready for the last planting season of the year.
To your continued success.
This sack potato farming business is not viable. I have been growing potatoes in the soil for sometime and tried to experiment with the sack potato thing. I just did 150 sacks for a start and the results are disappointing.