The main reason people suffer from vitamin A deficiency is that their diets lack foods rich in vitamin A. From 2007 to 2009, HarvestPlus and its partners distributed vitamin A-rich orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) to 24,000 farming households in Uganda and Mozambique. Our goal was to encourage farming communities to grow and eat more of this nutritious food. We targeted women and children, who suffer the most from vitamin A deficiency.

Improve nutrition with vitamin A–rich orange sweet potato

Rooting Out Hunger

Due to Vitamin A deficiency500,000 go blind every year

CHILDREN

WHY Vitamin A?

Vitamin A deficiency in children can lower resistance to common childhood illnesses like diarrhea and measles, and lead to blindness and even death.

Did farmers grow it?

Our Goal:

Farmers replaced more than half their fields of less nutritious white and yellow varieties with OFSP. Others grew sweet potato for the first time.

Percentage of project households that adopted OFSP by 2009

WOMEN WERE KEYIn project areas, 60% or more of OFSP farmers were women. They grew OFSP, fed it to their children, and sold it in local markets.

Yes!

PLANS TO EXPAND MOZAMBIQUE UGANDA

225,000 households by 2016

120,000 households by 2013

*

UGANDA

Adopted OFSP61%

MOZAMBIQUE

Adopted OFSP68%

THE OFSP PROJECT RAISED VITAMIN A INTAKE

Children 6–35 months Women0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

1,400

0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

1,400

Children 6–35 months Women

Vita

min

A co

nsum

ed d

aily

(µg

RAE)

66%

OFSP

> 60%

DIETARY VITAMIN A

MORE OFSP1ST 2ND3RD

OFSP

MAIZERICEOFSP was the third

most important food in the diet for young children when the project ended.

How much OFSP does it take?

Just one scoop (150 grams) meets a child's

daily need for vitamin A.

WOMEN & CHILDREN ATE AT LEAST

Women and children in Mozambique and Uganda ate more OFSP—a lot more.Did people eat it? Yes!

PARTNERS: Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA); Regional Potato and Sweetpotato Improvement Network in Eastern and Central Africa (PRAPACE); Uganda Farming for Food and Development Eastern Uganda (FADEP-EU); Helen Keller International, Mozambique; International Food Policy Research Institute, USA; International Potato Center (CIP), Peru; Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, United Kingdom; Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns (VEDCO), Uganda; World Vision International, Mozambique. We would like to thank the many people of Uganda and Mozambique who participated in the project and research study. *OFSP expansion in Mozambique by CIP. DESIGN: J.Vivalo/IFPRI

Did it improve nutrition? When women and children ate more OFSP, their vitamin A intake went up dramatically and risk of vitamin A deficiency went down.Yes!

IN MOZAMBIQUE,

other sources <

40%

CONTROL

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PROJECT

PROJECT PROJECT

PROJECT

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