Rooting Out Hunger

Roating Out Hunger Our Goal: Improve nutrition with vitamin A–rich orange sweet potato 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 (0FSP) 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. WHY Vitamin A? DEATHS OF 20 MILLION 6% Vitamin A deficiency in children can 500,0009 CHILDREN lower resistance to common childhood CHILDREN UNDER 5 Pregnant Women illnesses like diarrhea and measles, UP TO go blind every year and lead to blindness and even death. Due to Vitamin A deficiency ARE VITAMIN A DEFICIENT Did farmers grow it? Yes! Farmers replaced more than half their fields of less nutritious white and yellow varieties with OFSP. Others grew sweet potato for the first time. PLANS TO EXPAND-O.. MOZAMBIQUE UGANDA 120,000 225,000 househo lds by 2013 : households by 2016 Percentage of project households that adopted OFSP by 2009 WOMEN WERE KEY- MOZAMBIQUE UGANDA In project areas, 60% or more of OFSP farmers were women. They 68% 61% grew OFSP, fed it to their children, and sold it in local markets. Adopted OFSP Adopted OFSP Did people eat it? Yes! Women and children in Mozambique and Uganda ate more OFSP-a lot more. DIETARY VITAMIN A 60% IN MOZAMBIQUE, WOMEN & CHILDREN ATE AT LEAST MAIZE How much OFSP does it take? OFSP was the third RICE 66% most important food in the diet for young OFSP Just one scoop 3 RD 1ST 2ND children when the (150 grams) meets a child's daily need for vitamin A. MORE OFSP other sources project ended. Did it improve nutrition? Yes! When women and children ate more OFSP, their vitamin A intake went up dramatically and risk of vitamin A deficiency went down. THE OFSP PROJECT RAISED VITAMIN A INTAKE MOZAMBAUE E UGANDA 1,400 1,400 1,200 1,200 PROJECT PROJECT 1,000 1,000 800 800 CONTROL 600 600 CONTROL 400 400 PROJECT PROJECT 200 200 CONTROL CONTROL Children 6–35 months Women Children 6-35 months Women PARTNERS: Association for Strengthening Agricul tural 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, Moza mbique; Intemational Food Policy Research Institute, USA; Interna tional 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 participa ted in the project and research study. *OFSP expansion in Mozambique by CIP. DESIGN: J.Vivalo/IFPRI HarvestPlus Vitamin A consumed daily (ug RAE) OFSP 40%