Earn from sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes are one of the common food security crops around.

It is grown across most of the country, making it the third-most grown crop after bananas and cassava. In recent months, however, prices have drastically dropped due to a bumper harvest.

On some farms, a 100kg sack goes for as low as sh30,000, for example. Adding value to this product is the best way of earning more from the crop.

If processed into flour, the same sack can fetch a farmer as much as sh150,000. This can be done by farmers who are mid -level value chain investors. Potatoes can be processed into chips, flour that is used as a confectionery, for example baking daddies, mandazi, bagiya, etc. The common orange sweet potatoes are better suited for value addition. 

How to make potato flour

• You need potatoes

• Knife to slice them

• Saucepan

• Drying place and sacks to package

Select mature, fresh and healthy and medium to large sized sweet potato roots of the same variety. Use a knife to trim all the unwanted parts of the roots, such as damaged parts, auxiliary roots, etc.

Use a nylon rag or hand brush to thoroughly scrub and wash the skin of the roots in clean water, then pre-dry the washed roots in the sun to drain off excess moisture from root, before cutting the roots into thin pieces that dry fast (chips).

Then, spread the chips on a clean surface on a big rack that is all covered with a tarpaulin and leave them in open sun. Keep on turning the chips on the drying surface, until it is impossible to squeeze moisture out of the sweet potato chips. At this point, the chips are brittle and break easily.

You can then start sorting the dried chips by hand to remove any dis-coloured and under dried chips. Pack the dried pieces in bags, seal them and store them in a cool, clean and dry place with limited sunlight Take them to a flour mill for grinding into flour of required particle size before it is packed and ready for making the products. Make sure that it is packed in clean bags that are sealed properly and stored in a cool dry place.

Making daddies

• You need a frying pan

• Wheat and potato flour

• Cooking oil and blue band

• Sugar and milk

Mix one packet of wheat flour (2 kg), 1 kg of sweet potato flour (two cups), one packet of baking flour, 3/4 a kilo of sugar, 1kg of blue band, grated peeling from one lemon fruit, four whole eggs, juice squeezed from two lemons and a half litre of milk.

Mix the above ingredients thoroughly well, until you obtain an evenly balanced paste. While mixing, add half a cup of cooking oil to the paste for your daddies to be soft and crunchy.

Leave the finely made paste to rest up to 20 to 30 minutes for better results. Put the paste on a clean smooth surface and use a rolling stick to flatten it.

Then cut the flattened paste into small cubes of desired size.

Put the cubes into a heated pan with boiling cooking oil and keep turning, until the colour turns golden brown. Remove the daddies using a scooper and drain them of the cooking oil using a strainer.

Compiled by Joshua Kato (the editor Harvest Money)