Irish potato is an important food and cash crop throughout Kenya. In Bomet County, Irish potato production is done for household consumption and income generation. For the last one decade, Irish potato farmers have been urged to embrace value addition activities in order to increase their profits and thus household income. But since value addition comes with a cost, few studies have been conducted to determine whether uptake of the value addition practices truly increases profitability or not. The study used single cross-sectional data from 200 randomly selected farmers to determine and characterize the role of uptake of value addition practices on profitability of Irish potato production using Gross Margin Analysis. The Statistical Packages for Social Scientists (SPSS) was used in data analysis. The study found that the most common form of value addition practiced by the farmers was sorting (66.5%) while grading, chipping and frying was practiced by 0.5 % of farmers in each case. The study found a significant difference (P = 0.028) between the gross margin of value adders and non-value adders. Non value adders made losses of around 29,306 per acre as compared to value adders who earned a profit of 16,676 per acre. The study further established that, sorting was more profitable to farmers earning them a profit of Kshs 27,106.92. Frying, grading and chipping led to losses of Kshs 55,900, Kshs 55,889.20 and Kshs 30,000 respectively. From the results it was noted there is need to identify cost cutting technologies for grading, chipping and frying as this forms of value addition are not profitable to the farmers.

Keywords: Irish potatoes, Farmers, Smallholder, Value addition, Profitability