A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition indicates that orange sweet potato (OSP) is effective in providing vitamin A to malnourished women and children in Mozambique, where the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is very high.
VAD can lead to impaired immune defences and eye damage that may result in blindness and even death. Annually, 250,000 to 500,000 preschool children go blind from VAD, and about two-thirds will die within months of going blind.
From 2007–2009, the HarvestPlus (www.harvestplus.org) and its partners disseminated orange sweet potato to more than 24,000 households in Mozambique and Uganda to see if VAD could be reduced. HarvestPlus leads a global effort to breed and disseminate micronutrient-rich staple food crops to reduce hidden hunger in malnourished populations. It is part of the CGIAR Research Programme on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health. It is co-ordinated by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The project resulted in about 65 percent of households adopting OSP. While many farmers substituted OSP for yellow or white ones on their plots, a good number were ‘new’ sweet potato farmers. Due to adoption, household consumption of OSP and thus, vitamin A intakes, increased substantially. On average vitamin A intakes doubled for both children and women.
By project end, OSP provided more than 70 percent of all dietary vitamin A and was the third most important food in the diet (after maize and rice) for young children. OSP also provided more vitamin A than other local foods such as pumpkin, leafy green vegetables or mango. Available for about three months of the year, or longer in other regions, OSP can help close the VAD gap, when other vitamin A-rich foods or supplements are not available.
Orange sweet potato has also been introduced by other entities in countries including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to combat vitamin A deficiency.
(Harvestplus/wi)
For further reading:
Journal Article: A large-scale intervention to introduce orange sweet potato in rural Mozambique increases vitamin A intakes among children and women.
