Sweet Potato, Sweet Success

A program integrating nutrition education and distribution of orange-fleshed sweet potato vines within prenatal care is reaching target audiences at unexpectedly high rates – boosting both health and agricultural impacts.

The novel “Mama SASHA” program (“Sweet Potato Action for Security and Health in Africa”) in Western Kenya linking agricultural, nutritional, and prenatal health-care services to increase consumption of orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) among pregnant women and infants, is now in its second year.

Led by the International Potato Center (CIP), its goal is to create a sustainable system for combating vitamin A deficiency (VAD) where it can have the greatest impacts. Partners in the program include PATH (an international non-profit organization focused on health), the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, the Kenyan ministries of health and agriculture, two local NGOs (Community Research in Environment and Development Initiatives – CREADIS – and the Appropriate Rural Development Agriculture Program – ARDAP), the University of Toronto, Canada, and Emory University, USA.

Pregnant women and children less than two years old are most vulnerable to VAD. One medium-sized sweet potato can supply children and non-lactating women with their recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. Pregnancy is a particularly opportune time to reach women with nutritional and health interventions that can lower their risk of VAD and enhance the survival and growth of their infants.

As part of Mama SASHA, community health workers encourage pregnant women to seek pre- and postnatal care services at standing health facilities. They also run community-level clubs for pregnant women, with monthly discussion sessions on nutrition and health topics.

During prenatal care visits, the women receive nutrition counseling and vouchers that they can redeem for 200 cuttings of OFSP vines for planting. The vines are from improved varieties bred for local conditions and high levels of beta-carotene (which the body converts to vitamin A). The cuttings are obtained from vine multipliers, located near the health clinics and specifically trained in OFSP multiplication and production.

Though women are the primary producers of sweet potato in Kenya, engaging men – the family landholders – has also been critical. “We intentionally included both men and women as community health workers to help build buy-in from men,” says Ella Kedera, from PATH, who coordinates field activities. “Initially, men were reluctant to offer land for their wives’ sweet-potato production and did not see themselves as having a role in the program. But as the nutrition messages and voucher program have spread, men have become more supportive. We see more husbands providing land and helping to collect and plant the vines.”

Results so far have greatly surpassed expectations. The initial target was to reach 900 pregnant women in five years. After 14 months, the program had already reached and distributed vouchers to 3101 women – 70% of whom redeemed them for planting material.

As hoped, the vouchers are serving as a strong incentive to bring women into timely prenatal care and nutrition counseling. “Thank you for putting agriculture and health together,” says Caroline Wituta, a dedicated and energetic nurse in one of the participating health clinics. “We have to work as a team with our agricultural partners, balancing the weight on both shoulders to support healthier mothers and babies.”

This post is part of our series celebrating “40 years of CGIAR”
Photo courtesy: Jan Low/CIP