Kenya: Potato value addition in Limuru

Value addition in the agricultural sector has been hailed as a way to improve earnings while diversifying products to consumers. For Hannah Wanjiru, a potato farmer in Kenya, this holds true as she has been able to triple her income ever since she decided to open a small plant to make crisps as well as cut potato chips to sell to restaurants. Together with three workers she has employed at her farm, they are preparing and packaging crisps made from potatoes. “When we decided to start crisps processing, we only had twenty thousand shillings, we had our own potatoes and we brought the required items, jikos, sufurias, and we started off.” Turning the potatoes into crisps requires some hard work though. Immediately they are harvested, the potatoes are first peeled, after which they are thoroughly washed. From here, the peeled potatoes are chopped into thin slices. When choosing potatoes for crisps, Hannah says, you have got to check type of potato. Not all potatoes do well for crisps. Some will turn red, brown, white and you need the crisps to be slightly golden”. More