My name is Drocella Yankulije and I am an orange-fleshed sweet potato farmer and supplier in Rwanda. I’m also the founder of a youth group working on sweet potato farming here.
I started farming orange-fleshed sweet potato in September of 2011. That year I received vines through the Sweet Potato Action for Security and Health in Africa led by the International Potato Center.
Receiving the planting material made me interested in orange-fleshed sweet potato farming and liked that it was different from the traditional sweet potato crop that was available.
I decided to plant and cultivate the vines to see what it would produce.
Scaling up Sweetpotato through Agriculture and Nutrition (SUSTAIN) is a five-year partnership (2013-2018) coordinated by the International Potato Center (CIP) and financed by the UK Department for International Development to spread the nutrition benefits of biofortified OFSP to more farmers.
The program aims to reach 1.2 million households with children under 5 years across four countries: Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda through mutually-reinforcing incentives to increase adoption of OFSP, consumption of Vitamin-A-rich foods, and diversification of OFSP utilization.