A crop savior: Known as cilera abana (protector of the children) in some Africa regions, the sweetpotato has a long history as a lifesaver: in China, it saved millions people from starvation at the beginning of the 1960s; the Japanese use it whenever typhoons demolish their rice crops; in Uganda, when a virus devastated the cassava crops in the 1990s, the rural communities resorted to this root to appease the hunger. The sweetpotato also became a priority crop in several countries of Central America after the agricultural devastation that successive hurricanes left in their wake. In Peru, an innovative project of sweetpotato paste could be an alternative for use against child malnutrition.

Sweetpotato against child blindness in Africa. The sweetpotato has become an effective weapon in Africa in the fight against blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency. Thanks to a CIP initiative, in seven countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, orange flesh sweetpotato is being introduced successfully into the family diet. These new varieties of orange sweetpotato in some cases increase intake of vitamin A more than 90 percent. VITAA, the acronym of Vitamin A for Africa, is the name of this initiative that attempts to combat this deficiency with a very popular commodity in Africa instead of vitamin supplements or food strengthening, which frequently are not available for the poorest people.