We are very glad to know that orange-fleshed sweet potato is rich in Vitamin A. I eat it every day to improve my sight, and I am also diabetic. I need these vitamins to keep me strong and healthy so I always make sure that I include the orange-fleshed sweet potato as part of my diet and my families diet. We like to boil them, fry them and roast them.
Now that there are a group of orange-fleshed sweet potato farmers in the area, we work together to sell our crop. We harvest orange-fleshed sweet potato and sell them to the local factory in town, which makes commercial products from the roots. We also take the crop to the local market to sell it or process it to make baked goods to sell at the marketplace.
We also make use of the vines. We sell the vines to farmers in the local area and to farmer groups outside of the region as well. We also give the vines away for free to those families that cannot afford them. It is a great way to give a family an opportunity to make some money and to also improve their family’s health.
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.