Emmanuel Ashiabie has been a farmer for the past 30 years and has in recent years found a sweet spot in the production of sweet potatoes, describing it as a lucrative venture.

Based in a town known as Aberful; Awutu Senya in the Central Region, Mr. Ashiabie who started farming at age 19 is currently promoting the cultivation and consumption of sweet potatoes for maximum profit.

The farmer in an interview with the Ghanaian Farmer TV Show said he is happy with his harvest.

A tuber of sweet potato takes only three to four months to mature and in a good year, Mr. Emmanuel Ashiabie makes about GHC10,000 on an acre of sweet potato farm.

"An acre of sweet potato farm in good season can give you 50 of the 100KG sacks. And the price range is from GH100 to GH200 depending on the season and its availability," he told the host of Ghanaian Farmer, Enyonam Manye.

Sweet potatoes require fewer inputs and less labour compared to other food crops like maize and cassava; this explains why the farmer diverted into sweet potatoes farming on a large scale.

"I was much more into cassava and maize farming and sweet potatoes were on a small piece of land. I started to do it on a large scale after I realised it's more profitable with the ready market," Mr. Ashiabie explained.

According to the International Potato Centre, an agricultural research organization,  sweet potatoes are also hardy and more tolerant to harsh conditions like dry spells and poor soils.

The tuber can also stay in the soil long after maturity, making the time of harvest less critical.

Mr. Emmanuel Ashiabie who manages Emash Farms threw a challenge to other farmers to invest in sweet potato production as the profit is enormous.

While explaining why he chose to plant the white-fleshed type, he stated that it's quite easy and doesn't require a lot of water to perform well unlike the orange-fleshed one.

"In a good season, you can get more than 10 tubers of sweet potato on vine after harvest. If it's affected by bad weather patterns, you should be getting five or six. Even with this, you won't make losses."

"The best season to plant sweet potatoes and get a good price is between May and September.  It can be grown twice in a year."

Challenges

Meanwhile, Mr. Ashiabie highlighted the challenges he faces as a farmer and  one of the major ones is how real estate companies have taken over majority of the farmlands.

"Farmlands have become scarce because the estate companies have bought almost all of them. I used to rent 10 acres of land but that's not the case anymore. We can't get it to rent like before.

He appealed to the district to provide them with farming machinery including tractors as it is always a challenge hiring one during the farming season.

Forming Association

 To help address the challenges in getting financial support, Mr. Ashiabie has planned to form a farmer-based organisation for potato producers. He said this will also help address poor pricing from the buyers.

"Potatoes are a cash-crop which can also be added to Ghana's commodities for export.  A lot of people in this area have stopped maize and cassava farming and are into potato production," he added.

He acknowledged that the government's subsidy on fertilizer has been helpful.

He expressed gratitude to Crocodile Matchets for supporting farmers in diverse ways.

Value Addition To Sweet Potatoes

Aside from selling sweet potatoes in its raw form to local markets, the farmers are optimistic that the establishment of a factory in the Awutu Senya area can help sell value-added products made from sweet potatoes.

This can include sweet potato flour for bread as one of its products. Sweet potato flour can also go into snacks like cakes and pies.