Sunday, October 25, 2015

Vitamin A Rich OFSP working wonders in Uganda

ORANGE-FLESHED SWEET POTATOES: IMPROVING LIVES IN UGANDA

A nutritious sweet potato variety is growing in popularity and becoming an important strategy to improve vitamin A deficiency across Uganda. Orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) is rich in vitamin A and is being disseminated with support from USAID under Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative.     OFSP has now been adopted by over 55,000 Ugandan farming households, with up to 237,000 households expected to be planting and eating it by 2018. In November 2013, the Government of Uganda released two more varieties of this potato, bringing the total number to six.
Tubers from OFSP harvest
The potato was Introduced in 2007 by HarvestPlus, a part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.