Publications /  Annual Report 2001

	A sweetpotato a day "My children love it," says Florence Kiwendo. "At first I wasn't too keen, because it's not what I was brought up on. But now I'm getting to like it too. The nutritional advisor at our clinic says it will add a sparkle to my eyes!" Kiwendo is referring to Ejumula, a variety of sweetpotato with deep-orange flesh. A farmer and a mother of six in crowded central Uganda, Kiwendo is no stranger to sweetpotato. She has long grown this vital food staple on her small plot of land. But until recently, the only varieties she knew were the white-fleshed ones that are traditional in her area and across most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Kiwendo was introduced to Ejumula when she began participating in local on-farm trials. High in beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A, orange-fleshed varieties like Ejumula are an answer to one of Africa's greatest scourges: vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin A is essential for children's normal mental and physical development and for keeping pregnant and lactating mothers healthy and strong. Its lack can be a death sentence, in some cases directly but more often via a weakened immune system, which lays victims open to diseases such as measles, malaria and HIV-AIDS. Vitamin A deficiency also takes its toll on eyesight and often leads to blindness. According to a study by CIP economists (see page 16), the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are home to an estimated 50 million children under the age of six who are at risk from vitamin A deficiency. For them, eating just half a cup of orange-fleshed sweetpotato each day could solve the problem.
Nutritious and delicious: Orange-fleshed sweetpotato fits the bill for African consumers
Using a simple, crop-based approach, an innovative coalition is tackling a problem affecting millions of children and mothers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Strength in partnership

The institutions conducting the trials in Uganda - the Child Health Development Centre (CHDC) of Makerere University and the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) - are part of what is thought to be the world's first large-scale crop-based initiative to eradicate vitamin A deficiency. Known as Vitamin A for Africa or VITAA, the partnership spans disciplinary barriers, marshalling the resources of experts in agriculture, nutrition and health in a broad-based alliance designed to achieve wide coverage and lasting solutions.

Until recently, attempts to overcome vitamin A deficiency have been centered on two main approaches. The first is supplementation - handing out vitamin pills. This approach, managed largely through public-sector healthcare programs, can be effective if it is widely applied. But it has to be implemented every six months, making it expensive and difficult to sustain, especially in countries with poor roads and a rudimentary health system. The second approach is fortification of selected foods, such as sugar and salt. This too can be effective, but only for the people who can buy the foods in question. Those most at risk, especially the poor in rural areas, tend to get left out.

"VITAA reflects a groundswell of interest in switching over to a crop-based approach," says Regina Kapinga, the partnership's Africa-based coordinator. That interest culminated in a meeting held in May 2001 to formally launch the partnership. Attending were representatives from the first five African countries to participate: Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. Each has now prepared a plan of action and formed a national committee to oversee implementation.

The experience that sowed the seeds of VITAA came in the mid-1990s, when the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), CARE International and CIP came together in a pilot project to test whether orange-fleshed sweetpotato would appeal to African consumers. Until then it had been assumed that few would be willing to switch from the traditional white-fleshed varieties, which are less sweet tasting and are high in starch and dry matter content. "To our delight, the project banished the myth of consumer unacceptability," says CIP's regional representative for Africa, Peter Ewell. "Children especially welcomed the taste and texture."

Ewell sees many advantages in using sweetpotato to counter vitamin A deficiency in Africa. "Farmers are already familiar with the crop," he says, "so we are tweaking an existing system, not introducing something new. It's grown by many of the very people we need to reach - the poorest and most at risk from malnutrition." For children, sweetpotatoes are a more appealing source of vitamin A than green vegetables, which in any case allow less easy absorption by the body. And from the perspective of the family's provider, this hardy root crop is cheaper to buy or produce than other sources of vitamin A, especially milk and meat. Varieties of orange-fleshed sweetpotato that fit the bill for African consumers have already been identified. "They are ready now and need only to be locally adapted and deployed," says Ewell. "There is no need for an expensive and protracted investment in research."

Golden opportunity

The VITAA partners are capitalizing on this golden opportunity. In Kenya and Uganda, where activities are furthest advanced, KARI and NARO scientists are screening about 20 orange-fleshed varieties for their suitability to local environments while non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and women's groups conduct on-farm trials.

"Our initial results have confirmed the findings of the pilot study," says Kapinga. "Children love the taste, texture and color of Ejumula, while adults prefer the lighter orange Kakamega variety, which is less sweet." Farmers also are finding that the new sweetpotatoes grow well, producing acceptable yields even when stressed by drought and insect pests.

The next generation of improved varieties will give farmers even greater options. "We're keen to offer families more choices and it's important we do so," says CIP's Lima-based sweetpotato plant breeder, Dapeng Zhang, whose team developed the new materials by crossing parents chosen from the germplasm collection held in trust by CIP. "Decisions on what to grow on the farms' larger fields are usually made by men, who favor high dry-matter and starch content. But women grow the backyard crops - and they want the varieties that are best for the family's nutrition, especially the children." The new sweetpotatoes offer growers the best of both worlds, relatively high beta-carotene levels with good starch and dry matter content.

About 40 new lines of sweetpotato are now ready for dispatch to Nairobi. After clearing quarantine, they will be multiplied and distributed through the expanding network of VITAA collaborators in Eastern and Southern Africa. As in the pilot study, the partners will work through the strong community and women's groups existing in the region, which offer the best chances of changing the eating habits of rural families. These groups also support the development of much needed micro-enterprises that promote processing of orange-fleshed sweetpotato into products for urban consumers, many of whom are also deficient in vitamin A.

Adding value after harvest

Mary Atieno, an enterprising farmer turned food processor in Teso, western Kenya, is one of a small but growing number of entrepreneurs in Uganda and Kenya who are discovering that processing and marketing the new sweetpotatoes pays. Thanks to Atieno, local schoolchildren are enjoying a delicious yet cheap addition to their diets: chapatis made with flour from orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes.

Atieno used to make chapatis out of wheat flour. She decided to change her recipe after growing the new sweetpotatoes on her farm and trying them out on her own children. Pupils at neighboring village schools have greeted her new chapatis, which sell for only KSh5 apiece (US$.06), with enthusiasm and now regularly buy them at her small kiosk on their way to or from school. Atieno's sales have risen rapidly to around KSh200 (US$2.40) a day, an amount that has enabled her to refurbish her kiosk with a new corrugated iron roof and a cement floor.

"After my experience with the chapatis, I'm keen to learn how to make other products," Atieno says. In October 2001 she had the opportunity to do just that when she attended a workshop for small-scale processors organized by local NGOs. At the workshop, she and other participants were introduced to sweetpotato "crackie", a mashed and fried product popular elsewhere in the region.

In large parts of Eastern and Southern Africa, sweetpotatoes are normally eaten boiled. Consumers are unfamiliar with the diversity of processed products consumed elsewhere in the world and in the few areas, mostly urban, where processing does take place, flour-based products made from white-fleshed varieties still prevail.

Thanks to research by VITAA partners, entrepreneurs like Atieno are learning that there is ample room for sweetpotato-based products on the market and that orange-fleshed varieties can add a welcome touch of sweetness. A classic example of the processing possibilities for the new sweetpotato varieties is the kabalagala, a traditional deep-fried pancake made in Uganda from cassava flour and banana pulp. In a survey conducted by NARO in the area around Kampala, consumers complained that the local kabalagalas couldn't be relied on to taste good. The reason was the high cost and scarcity of banana, the crucial ingredient for sweetness. Switching from cassava flour to orange-fleshed sweetpotato flour would simultaneously improve quality and cut costs, as it would allow processors to reduce the amount of banana pulp. Around 85-90 percent of processors surveyed thought the switch was a good idea.

Mills and factories are starting to show an interest in making sweetpotato flour and using it in their recipes. For example, the House of Quality Spices, a family business supplying supermarkets in Kampala and exporting its products to Kenya and Congo, recently approached CIP's regional researchers. The owners had seen the flour's potential and wanted to know how to secure a steady supply of it.

Training and public awareness activities are vital in bringing such opportunities to the attention of small-scale producers and processors. In western Kenya, CIP works with the Regional Potato and Sweetpotato Improvement Program for East and Central Africa (PRAPACE) to introduce processing techniques and products to women's groups. The workshop attended by Atieno was one of several such events, many more of which will be organized by NGOs and other institutions as knowledge of the value of orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes spreads.

The signs are that orange-fleshed sweetpotato will rapidly gain a place in the affections of African consumers. Children are already developing a healthy fancy for a food that is not only good for them but actually tastes good too. Adults, though more cautious, are also warming to the new item in their diets. They are learning that it is, indeed, a lifesaver.