During 2010–2013, cuttings from four large-scale centralized
nurseries (one at the ARC and three at universities, with easy access to
rural populations) were disseminated mostly to government departments
(e.g. food gardens, correctional services, school gardens). Also,
during each planting season five to ten individual small-scale commercial
farmers purchased 8000–30,000 cuttings from the nurseries for
growing 0.25 to 1 ha of sweet potato (Laurie, Mtileni et al., 2014).
Eighty-five members from cooperatives were trained in cultivating
orange-fleshed sweet potato and produced between 0.3 and 1 ha in different
climate and socio-economic settings in three provinces, achieving
a mean farm level yield of 21.3 t ha−1. In some cases wholesalers
purchased crates (20 kg) with unwashed roots from the growers,
which were then washed and sold by vendors and hawkers at informal
markets; in other cases the growerswashed the sweet potatoes and sold
the produce on the roadside.