Sweetening Lives with Sweet Potato

Summary posted by Meridian on 10/27/2009
Source: CIP
Author: n/a

The Peru-based International Potato Center (CIP) has received a five-year, US$21 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the U.S. to launch a new project aimed at "leveraging the untapped potential of sweet potato to significantly improve the nutrition, incomes, and food production of farming families in sub-Saharan Africa, especially among impoverished women and children," this press release reports. The grant was one of nine new grants announced by Bill Gates on October 15 at the World Food Prize Symposium in the U.S. The new project, which is being called Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA), will be a multi-pronged effort to provide improved growing material to farmers in eight sub-Saharan African countries. SASHA will promote the use of orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties that are rich in pro-vitamin A, and it will use conventional breeding to develop a wide range of locally-adapted sweet potato varieties that are resistant to drought and disease. In addition, because conventional breeding has not succeeded in creating sweet potato varieties that are resistant to weevils, the project will use "advances in biotechnology" to develop weevil-resistant varieties. SASHA will also increase the availability of disease-free vines for planting and explore novel systems for disseminating planting material to farmers. And finally, the project will establish three regional support programs, based in leading national program research centers in Ghana, Uganda, and Mozambique, to promote sustainable local breeding skills and capacity. The sweet potato is the third most important food crop in East Africa in terms of production and the fourth most important in Southern Africa, according to the press release. The press release can be viewed online at the link below.

The original article may still be available at www.cipotato.org/pressroom/press_releases_detail.asp?cod=67

As tagged by Meridian Institute:

Topics: Risks and benefits: human health, Smallholder farmers, Food security, Product development
Regions: South America, North America, Sub-Saharan Africa
Stakeholders: Donors, International Institutions, Farmer

Related Forums:

• Scientific research and product development
• Risks and benefits: human health
• Smallholder farmers
• Food Security

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