NYANGA — The country’s dwindling potato production is expected to receive a major boost as measures are underway to increase output from small scale farmers from 16 tonnes to 25 tonnes per hectare in the next two years. 
This is a result of efforts by a local private company, which is assisting smallholder farmers in Nyanga and Mutasa Districts — two of the country’s top potato producing areas — with   training, input sourcing and crop marketing.
Potato World is set to influence competitive pricing on the market, seek irrigation partners to ensure production throughout the year and engage government to rehabilitate roads in hard to reach potato producing  areas.
The company is working with 350 farmers in Nyanga and Mutasa with an average plot measuring one hectare. They are expecting the number of participating farmers to increase to 1000 by 2015.
Traditionally, potatoes have been grown by large-scale commercial farmers in Zimbabwe before the land reform programme but more and more smallholder farmers in Nyanga, Mutasa, Domboshawa, Chiweshe, Wedza, Goromonzi and Mhondoro are now growing the crop.

But high costs of production have resulted in a sharp decrease in national production, as new farmers are finding it difficult to penetrate the potato market.
Procurement of high quality seed is also a challenge as local supplies are limited.
As a result, the country has been importing potatoes from South Africa as local producers struggle to meet the demand.

In December 2010, the Agricultural Marketing Authority imposed a ban on potato imports after heavy lobbying from local producers who were unable to compete with competitively priced potatoes from South Africa.
Large volumes of potatoes are still entering the country, with the bulk of them  sold in Bulawayo.
Stricter measures to enforce the ban might result in serious potato shortages, as local producers cannot meet national demand.
At the moment, the local market is operating at approximately 50 percent of capacity.