Assessing the influence of the sweet potato value addition on the profitability of the smallholder farmers, a case study of Arapai sub county Soroti district, eastern Uganda.

Abstract

Sweet potato is a high-yielding crop with a higher food value than many staple crops and gaining popularity a commercial tuber. Its production in Uganda is popular in most of the regions of the Country. To promote the growth of the sweet potato subsector and to ensure profitability among the sweet potato producers, the Ugandan Government and different private bodies. have formulated policies and programs to encourage and promote Sweet potato value addition. However, implementation policies in the sweet potato sub-sector has faced challenges partly due to insufficient information on the value-addition techniques and profitability of sweet potatoes. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to assess the influence of sweet potato value addition on the profitability of smallholder farmers in Arapai sub-county Soroti district, and the study was carried out on 60 farmers that were got by simple random Sampling. technique. Correlation analysis was conducted to determine the association between the study variables and to assess the existence of while Ordinary Least Square Technique was used to estimate the profitability model. The study revealed that: Level of value addition of sweet potatoes, Duration of the farmer in sweet potato Farming, sales growth rate; market share, labour intensity, and total operating cost all had significant influences on sweet potato profitability. It is recommended that sweet potato value addition by the Smallholder farmers highly triggers the level of profitability from sweet potatoes, learning by experience be enhanced through training on production and post-harvest management techniques to minimize potential handling and storage-related losses, increase sales growth rate and market share, encourage the use of manual labour and at the same time determine the Optimal number of workers per unit area of land.