Combating vitamin A deficiency with orange-fleshed sweet potato 26 June, 2008
One of the easiest ways to introduce more vitamin A into the diet is to eat orange-fleshed sweet potato.
In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 3 million children under the age of five suffer from blindness as a result of vitamin A deficiency.
This deficiency is also one of the leading causes of early childhood death and a major risk factor for pregnant women in Africa. One of the easiest ways to introduce more vitamin A into the diet is to eat orange-fleshed sweet potato. This type of sweet potato is rich in betacarotene, which the body converts easily into vitamin A. It is also easy to grow and affordable by the average consumer.
Adding 100 grams of the sweet potato to the daily diet can prevent vitamin A deficiency in children and dramatically reduce maternal mortality. An ex ante impact assessment by economists from CIP and Michigan State University indicated that introducing the new high beta-carotene cultivars could benefit 50 million African children under the age of six.
Pioneered and led by the International Potato Center (CIP), the Vitamin A Partnership for Africa (VITAA) is promoting the increased production and use of orange-fleshed sweet potato. The partnership includes more than 70 agencies from the health, nutrition and agricultural sectors, working together in ten partner countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Sweet potato is a women's crop grown mainly for family use and to supplement household income,” said VITAA Project Coordinator Regina Kapinga, a Tanzanian agronomist based at CIP's field office in Kampala, Uganda. “VITAA offers a common-sense solution to a major public health problem.”
CIP has developed about 40 new starchy orangefleshed sweet potato varieties with resistance to viruses. These varieties have been accepted by farmers and consumers in Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. To encourage adoption, VITAA has developed a clever social marketing strategy and action plan. Mothers and school-age children are targeted with simple messages—such as “Feed orange-fleshed sweet potato: contains vitamin A for your child's health”—that create demand for the new varieties and associated food products. Awareness campaigns and nutrition education are creating a demand for planting materials and information.
Joweria Sekiyanja, a Ugandan mother of eight, is a VITAA success story. “It's not often that a lifesaver turns out to be a money-spinner for people in communities where it's saving lives,” she said. Joweria is educating her children and banking money. “I make juices, doughnuts, cakes and chips from the VITAA sweet potatoes that I sell from my kiosk. People like them very much. In Uganda, a single farmer can earn up to US$400 per month,” added Joweria.
VITAA has received support from the Queen of Buganda Kingdom, Her Majesty Sylvia Naginda Nabagereka. She launched a campaign to promote orange-fleshed sweet potato in Uganda's fight against vitamin A deficiency. The Queen, known locally as the Nabagereka, has appealed to all Ugandans to grow and eat orange-fleshed sweet potato to fight malnutrition and poverty. The Nabagereka is held in high esteem by her subjects and plays a pivotal role in mobilizing development efforts in the Buganda Kingdom. Community members have taken her recommendations seriously, recognizing that, along with bigger profits and better health, the orange sweet potato varieties can bring other benefits to the village. In the words of a village leader, “It has earned us prestige.”
A workshop for parliamentarians further raised government interest. Workshop participants targeted five pilot constituencies to receive planting material donated by VITAA. “Many MPs, especially women, got interested in my work and later contacted me to train women's groups in their areas,” said Joweria.
The workshop participants are dedicated to promoting food security. “The interesting angle is the keen commitment by the members of parliament who have ferried vines to their constituents with their own resources,” said Joweria. Recently the president of Uganda has become involved, praising the initiative in a public address and promising a factory to expand sweet potato processing.
The scheme offers a model for a food-based initiative to eradicate vitamin deficiency. “The introduction of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes has already had a significant impact in target areas of Uganda,” said David Yanggen, an agricultural economist at CIP. “VITAA has the capacity to help massive numbers of people.”
The project is being extended outside Africa, initially to China, where an estimated 40 000 children a year lose their sight from vitamin A deficiency.
The initial VITAA activities were supported by contributions from CIDA, CIP and its donors, DFID, the OPEC Fund for International Development, the Senior Family Fund, The Micronutrient Initiative, USAID-Africa Bureau and MOST, PRAPACE and SARRNET.
By Paul Stapleton, CIP
For further information visit the website or contact the VITAA coordinator Regina Kapinga at r.kapinga@cgiar.org
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Food Nutrition Bulletain 2005 Dec;26(4):348-55. Vitamin A deficiency and child survival in sub-Saharan Africa: a reappraisal of challenges and opportunities.
Aguayo VM, Baker SK.
UNICEF Regional Office for West and Central Africa, Dakar, Senegal. vaguayo@unicef.org Abstract
BACKGROUND: Children with vitamin A deficiency have higher risk of morbidity and mortality than vitamin A-sufficient children. Estimates on the potential child survival benefits of vitamin A deficiency control are needed for policy and program advocacy. OBJECTIVE: To determine the current prevalence of children at risk for vitamin A deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa in order to estimate the potential child-survival benefits of effective and sustained policies and programs for the control of vitamin A deficiency in this region. METHODS: Estimates of the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency generated in 1998, data from 11 nationally representative vitamin A deficiency surveys conducted in sub-Saharan Africa between 1997 and 2003, and the measured effects of vitamin A deficiency on child mortality were combined to estimate the prevalence of children at risk for vitamin A deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa and the potential child-survival benefits of effective and sustained policies and programs for the control of vitamin A deficiency in this region. RESULTS: Our analysis shows that in the absence of effective and sustained policies and programs for the control of vitamin A deficiency, an estimated 42.4% of children 0 to 59 months of age in sub-Saharan Africa (43.2 million children) are at risk for vitamin A deficiency. Such effective and sustained policy and program action for the control of vitamin A deficiency can bring about a potential 25% reduction in mortality in children 0 to 59 months with respect to 1995 mortality levels (i.e., before the onset of large-scale vitamin A supplementation programs in sub-Saharan Africa). CONCLUSIONS: Effective and sustained control of vitamin A deficiency has the potential to be among the most cost-effective and high-impact child-survival interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. A stronger political commitment and a more appropriate level of investment in the effective control of vitamin A deficiency could make a large contribution toward the attainment of the Millennium Development Goal for the reduction of child mortality rates by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Among the many challenges that Africa will need to face in the coming years, vitamin A deficiency is one that can be overcome. The need is urgent, and the solutions are known, effective, and affordable.
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The inability of early humans to synthesize vitamin A in Africa was a contributing factor to the OOA migration. Higher latitudes faciliated the adaptation needed for these early humans to synthesize vitamin A, hence the evolution of light or "white" skin. And this was a most advantageous trait (light skin) for humans, as it was a step foward in the evolution of homosapien.
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