Programs

Reaching End Users with Biofortified Crops

Best Practices for Disseminating Orange Flesh Sweetpotato in East and Southern Africa

Under the current HarvestPlus program, research activities include the development of biofortified crops that are nutritionally efficacious and adapted to local growing environments. The dissemination of biofortified foods is not yet funded under the HarvestPlus program, but the opportunity to promote a HarvestPlus crop has occurred more quickly than originally anticipated with the successful development of OFSP that are high in beta-carotene.

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in Africa affects nearly one-third of the population. In Uganda and Mozambique, VAD is thought to affect between 38 and 68% of all children respectively. Orange flesh sweetpotato is one of a few foods that can provide very high amounts of highly bioavailable beta-carotene and has been shown to be efficacious in improving vitamin A status.

Demonstrated success in disseminating biofortified orange flesh [high beta-carotene] sweetpotato (OFSP) in selected areas of Mozambique and Uganda will be translated into “best practices” and applied to future work by HarvestPlus and other biofortification programs. Contrasting conditions between Uganda and Mozambique provide the variation necessary to draw useful conclusions and lessons learned that can then be applied to other sites/countries.

Project Design and Implementation Plan

To be available to consumers on a sustainable basis, OFSP must be either incorporated into existing marketing chains or new market opportunities must be developed. HarvestPlus has developed an REU strategy that centers on simultaneously facilitating the dissemination of OFSP varieties and creating the demand for these varieties by linking producers and consumers through product and market development. Please refer to figure 2 for the discussion that follows.

HarvestPlus must engage and develop the capacity of “end users” (producers, consumers, and processors/retailers) and, at the same time, transfer knowledge and create awareness among “enablers” and “diffusers” of the new technology. This will be done by first conducting diagnostic analyses (Box 1) that includes a review of existing data and the collection of baseline data on the production-marketing-consumption chain. This information will be used to develop integrated implementation strategy for OFSP that includes three major components: Farmer Adoption/Planting Material Systems (Box 2) that focuses on the production and dissemination of seed/planting material through both traditional and non-traditional channels; Creation of markets and new products (Box 3); Create Demand (Box 4); and Monitoring and Feedback (Box 5) through a built-in process to encourage co-learning and feedback among all stakeholders, which will be part of the operations research. Implementation activities across components will be measured against milestones, derived from the diagnostic phase.

An operations research group will monitor the success of the initial strategy and will make recommendations for modifications in real time as the project proceeds. An additional responsibility of the operations research groups will be to draw on the data and experience gained from the implementation phase to reach conclusions as to lessons learned and best practices that can be applied in the dissemination of OFSP in other countries and situations.

Implementation

Implementation in Uganda and Mozambique will be through a combination of international, regional, and national institutions that have national-level expertise in farmer extension and planting material production systems, product and market development systems, and demand creation. They represent public and NGO institutions working in agriculture and health.

• ASARECA (Association for strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa)
• VEDCO (Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns)
• FADEP-EU – Farming for Development Program – Eastern Uganda
• World Vision International (WVI)
• Helen Keller International (HKI)
• The Provincial Nutrition Division of the Ministry of Health (indirect participation)
• Mozambican Institute for Agriculture and Livestock Investigation (indirect participation)

• International Potato Center
• Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich
• HarvestPlus

Management Plan

Implementation in each country will be coordinated by a single organization experienced in dissemination of crop planting material. Experts in seed systems and extension, marketing and product development, and demand creation will be hired by the implementing institution and coordinated by a Project Director. Lessons derived from operations research will feed directly back into the breeding and nutrition research activities under HarvestPlus through communication channels and organizational structures that overlap between the two programs.

The dissemination of outputs from the OFSP deployment project will build upon the network and tools that have already been established by HarvestPlus and its partners engaged in the development of biofortified crops. A series of publications, guidelines and electronic media highlighting best practices is envisioned to assist deployment of biofortified products by other programs. HarvestPlus outreach will work directly with the demand creation component of OFSP by convening enabler forums and advising on the creation of global public goods from the outcomes of the implementation and operations research activities. As a first step these efforts will concentrate on enablers in Uganda and Mozambique as identified through the diagnostic research activities. In addition, publications, guidelines and best practices developed from the project will be disseminated through the HarvestPlus dissemination networks.