Orange Fleshed Sweetpotato as vegetables for man and animal

Agro Nigeria News

Fasakin Jadesola Oluwayemisi, a trainer cum facilitator is also an all-season vegetable farmer with bias for the cultivation of orange-fleshed-sweet potato. In an exclusive interview in Maya village where her farm is located, she discussed her new found farming-love and sundry issues. Excerpts;

What kind of farming do you practise?

I am a vegetable farmer and specifically into the Orange-fleshed-sweet potato production and am also a vine multiplier.

Pigs being fed with OSFP Leaves

What prompted your interest in farming?

I must say that it was my love for consuming fresh vegetables that triggered my interest and lured me away from my white-collar Job into farming and ever since, it has been a good experience. Thereafter, I developed myself by attending training and seminars on farming.

Why orange-fleshed-sweet potato and not the usual potato that we all know?

Well, I was browsing online one day and stumbled on the orange fleshed sweet potato variety. Having read so much about it especially its vitamin A content, I instantly picked interest in it. As an Agriculturist, I also carried out further research and discovered that it can favorably help resolve malnutrition challenges that are common in mostly women and children in our Society because of the nutritional element embedded in it.

At a point, I felt it would not be out of place to engage in serious advocacy via farming so that more consumers and especially women would see the need to add the orange fleshed potato to their daily menu just like the Osun State government did for school pupils in its school feeding programme for primary school children, so that by extension our children and other members of the society can get vitamin ‘A’ in a larger dose directly from the potato variety.

Also, I engage in what we call Vine Multiplier Group so that our farmers can have access to the potato vine without which planting can be difficult. We are making success in this regard largely because apart from the colour that makes it attractive, the nutritional content cannot be over emphasized.

During our “for RAC Campaign” recently, we distributed free vine and even potato tubers to interested farmers, schools and Institutions.