A New Twist On An Old Crop

By David Snyder and Debbie DeVoe

LAKE VICTORIA, Tanzania — From a farmer's perspective, the lush shores of Tanzania's Lake Victoria seem a virtual paradise. The soil here is rich, and the vastness of the nearby lake could provide all the water necessary for irrigating cropland.

But for many in the lake region, the land is anything but productive. Droughts have grown more common in recent years, and many people aren't close enough to the lake to tap its vast water supply. Even the majority of those living on the shores can ill afford expensive irrigation equipment: 20 percent of Tanzania's rural farmers live on less than $1 a day.

For the Tanzania Home Economics Association (TAHEA), a partner agency of Catholic Relief Services working in the area, the depth of this problem came to light in a slightly unexpected way.

"We had a training project in health, and we saw women coming with malnourished children," explains Mary Kabati, assistant coordinator of TAHEA. "So we came to the idea that our training could not be effective because people were hungry."

An Eye on Sweet Potatoes

To address the problem, Catholic Relief Services and TAHEA began working together to repackage a crop familiar to Tanzanian farmers: the sweet potato. Long a staple of the local diet and a primary reserve crop during famines, traditional white sweet potatoes unfortunately lack much in the way of nutrients. But improved orange-fleshed varieties are packed with vitamins, especially vitamin A. The new varieties also mature more quickly and produce far more potatoes than the old white varieties.

Started in 2004, the CRS-supported TAHEA Sweet Potato Promotion project initially targeted 300 local farmers from 15 farmers' groups. Using funding from the Foods Resource Bank — a multidenominational program that engages U.S. farmers to support agricultural programs in the developing world by donating crop proceeds from their own land — the project first distributed seedling vines of eight different orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties. With training from TAHEA and government agricultural extension officers, the farmers multiplied these vines, determined the best varieties and then shared them with members of their individual groups.

The TAHEA project is now working with 60 local farmers' groups that have a total of 1,800 members, most of whom are growing improved varieties of the orange-fleshed sweet potato. Greater yields provide the farmers with an excess they can sell, increasing household incomes while ensuring that families are well fed. For many it is the first regular surplus of food they have ever been able to produce.

"One plant of a local [sweet potato] might have three tubers," observes Mwanaidi Ramadhani, a member of the Mwasonge Farmers' Group. "But some varieties of the new ones might have eight or even ten, so it increases your crop by more than 50 percent."

Sweetening the Deal

To further increase farmers' income, the Sweet Potato Promotion project is linking the farmers' groups to national markets and working to promote consumption of the orange-fleshed sweet potato through regional agricultural shows. Farmers also gain access to equipment that lets them make flour, potato chips and juice from the sweet potatoes, all of which they can sell — along with the entire roots — in local markets.

The resulting income has had a huge impact in the 12 communities where the project is active. Farmers like Mwanaidi Ramadhani can now provide for their families on a level they previously couldn't have imagined. Based on area indicators of food needs during the most food-insecure months, government food aid has also been reduced during the dry season.

"With that money, I sent my two daughters to secondary school, as I was able to pay fees," Mwanaidi says.

Tremendous Tubers

Community benefits aren't just economic, though. Nurse Emiliana Buganda of the local Mwasonge Dispensary decided to see if the new varieties of sweet potatoes could help reverse the skyrocketing malnutrition rates she was seeing among young children. She began combining educational classes about how to prepare nutritious food with personal distributions of sweet-potato flour to those most in need.

One of the 40 children targeted through the dispensary for intensive attention is Lameck John. Born severely anemic, Lameck has had five blood transfusions to recharge his exhausted blood supply — all before his third birthday. His mother, trained at the dispensary, is now making highly nutritious meals for Lameck and is making sure he gets added vitamins from regular feedings of sweet-potato products.

"He just started walking three weeks ago," says his mother, Godriver Angelo, who has also joined a farmers' group. "Before that he could never walk."

Nurse Buganda's efforts have truly paid off. The trainings, combined with the wider availability of the nutrient-rich sweet potatoes, have driven down the malnutrition rate of children under age 5 at the Mwasonge Dispensary, from an average of 66 per 100 children to just 22 per 100.

By taking a new twist on an old crop, the TAHEA project is bringing significant health and economic benefits to Tanzania's lake region — changing the lives of tens of thousands of families in the area simply by changing the color of the potato they eat.

David Snyder is a photojournalist who has traveled to more than 30 countries with CRS. Most recently, David visited country programs in South Africa and East Africa, including Tanzania.

Debbie DeVoe is CRS' regional information officer in East Africa. She is based in Nairobi and has recently visited CRS programs in Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia.