From hats to t-shirts to lively skirts printed in a telltale orange, fashion has become one of the most playful ways in which International Potato Center (CIP) staff remind people that biofortified orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) is the sweet that brings health. Getting people to adopt the powerful hidden hunger fighter, OFSP, into their diets requires a lot more than simply getting the potent root into people’s hands. In Sub-Saharan Africa where the taste of the white fleshed variety is much more familiar, changing set dietary habits means a concentrated branding effort to help people associate the color orange with health. CIP staff, often known as the orange brigade, use every opportunity to reinforce the OFSP brand and know that even the smallest detail, such as what you wear, is just one more tool in CIP’s mission to end hunger.
OFSP Fashion
An OFSP decentralized vine multiplier (DVM) takes a walk through her fields in Kenya. Her outfit is a walking advertisement for the healthy properties of her vines.
Custom designed capulanas are distributed to women charged with promoting OFSP in their communities in Mozambique.
Entertainment at the 6th annual sweetpotato for profit and health initiative in Kigali, Rwanda, 2015.
Breads baked with OFSP are advertised at a CIP event. By the year 2023 CIP aims to reach at least 15 million resource-poor households with this resilient, nutritious crop.
A cooking demonstration in Mozambique helps teach communities how to incorporate OFSP into their daily diets. Aprons, head wraps and t-shirts help to reinforce the OFSP brand.
T-shirts such as the one worn by this caregiver in Malawi serve as powerful reminders to other mothers of the benefits of OFSP.
