Flash floods wash potatoes away in Nyandarua, cutting staple supplies long-term

“I opted for potatoes as a good alternative measure. I had all the hopes, before hell broke loose,” said Mary, in an interview with FarmBizAfrica from her farm in Ndivai area, Ndaragwa Sub-County,

She planted the potatoes in March to align with the long rains, which run from March to May. At first, the rains fell at a normal rate. However, the rains’ intensity increased, flooding her shamba, which is adjacent to a dam.

“All my potatoes were swept away by the raging floods. I was unable to replant, as I had committed all my savings on the potatoes,” she said.

Since the rains subsided in Nyandarua in around June, Mary, like other farmers, has been unable to replant during the dry season.

But as the country awaits the predicted El Nino rains from early October, Mary said she is still hesitant to replant more potatoes, despite the current high demand, just to lose them to flooding again.

Waikwa Maina, a potato farmer in the same county, which is Kenya’s leading potato producer, said he suffered the same fate last season, losing over 50 percent of the potatoes he had planted on his one-and-a-half-acre farm.

“I incurred heavy losses. There are some farmers I know in areas such as Kinangop, who lost over 80 percent of their potatoes to floods,” he told FarmBizAfrica.

Waikwa said farmers had been planting trees, digging terraces and building gabions as mitigation measures, but the heavy losses by most farmers was now also affecting the volume of seeds available to plant.

“Currently, there are not enough seeds for the crop because most of it was washed away by floods. The long-term effect is that this scarcity raised its price, making it unaffordable to most small-scale farmers,” he said.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), Nyandarua is Kenya’s leading potato producer, accounting for an estimated 30 to 40 percent of national output.

Its dominance is supported by the cool, high-altitude climate and fertile volcanic soils found across areas such as the Kinangop Plateau and the slopes of the Aberdares.

Other major potato-producing counties include Nakuru, Meru, Elgeyo Marakwet, Narok and Bomet.

Nationally, Kenya produces between 2 to 2.5 million tonnes of potatoes annually, with recent FAOSTAT data putting production at about 2.118 million tonnes.

This makes potatoes the country’s second largest staple food, after maize, flagging further significant pressure on Kenya’s food security through 2026 and into 2027, and a strong planting opportunity at the current high prices, for farmers on land protected from flooding.