Potato growers cry for help

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 13:51:55 +0000

By MAILESI BANDA

THE local potato industry is being suffocated by the flooding of imported potatoes from South Africa and this has led to a reduction of the price of the local produce by forty percent.

This has forced the local farmers to sale below the cost of production, Buuya Baamba managing director, Anhtony Barker has said.

Mr. Barker said the industry was struggling with the potatoes coming in from South Africa because the farmers there produced the potatoes at a low cost due to the tax exempt status.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Nation, he said the local market was struggling and appealed to the government to regulate the imports.

“We are struggling because of the imported potatoes from South Africa. The country has a huge over supply of potatoes and they had a bumper harvest and this has continued to flood our struggling market,” he said.

He explained that the oversupply of the potatoes was flooding the local market which was smal,l adding that if this continued, it would affect jobs and the industry’s growth.

He appealed to Government to regulate imports and help the sector flourish.

Mr Barker said they had planted more with the hope that once the produce was ready, Government would support them.

He said the flooded market had led to the price of potatoes going down to about 49 percent because of South Africa dumping their produce here.

He said that the current situation was making it difficult for investors to invest in the country since the business environment favoured those that imported goods and not local producers.