Farmers Review Africa July/Aug 2017 Farmers Review Africa July/Aug 2017 | Page 17

Insights
“e local farmers have seen my
achievements and so it has been very
easy to convince them to grow orange
eshed sweetpotato on their farms”
e view overlooking Marie Claire's
farm from her house .
Photo by: S. Quinn/CIP
roots. We also take the crop to the local market to
Ministry of Health's programs to reduce and young children among farming communities
in selected districts.
sell and we process OFSP to make baked goods to malnutrition through a combination of crop sell at the marketplace. diversi cation and supplementation programs. We also make use of the OFSP vines. We sell the In Rwanda, CIP's work under the SASHA Nutrition (SUSTAIN) is a ve-year partnership
vines to farmers in the local area and to farmer (Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in (2013-2018) coordinated by the International
groups outside of the region as well. We also give Africa) project demonstrated that through Potato Center (CIP) and
Department for International Development to
Scaling up Sweetpotato through Agriculture and
nanced by the UK
the vines away for free to those families that effective private public partnerships we can cannot afford them. It is a great way to give a build a sweetpotato value chain that is pro-poor spread the nutrition bene ts of bioforti ed OFSP
family an opportunity to make some money and and pro-women. As such, the SUSTAIN project to more farmers. e program aims to reach 1.2
to also improve their family's health.
intends to scale up the development of a OFSP million households with children under 5 years
seed system, link the bene ciaries to the market a c ro s s f ou r c ou nt r i e s : Ke ny a , Ma l aw i ,
With OFSP I have been able to increase my through effective partnerships and integrate Mozambique and Rwanda through mutually-
income and it is more reliable. e income I get agriculture-nutrition health linkages to deliver reinforcing incentives to increase adoption of
from OFSP farming means that I can help my OFSP to var ious s egments of Rwanda OFSP, consumption of Vitamin-A-rich foods, and
children - three of my children are at university households. SUSTAIN Rwanda intends to reach diversi cation of OFSP utilization.
and I am paying for their school fees with this 50,000 direct bene ciaries and 250,000 indirect money. bene ciaries by 2018, while providing By Sara Quinn,
smallholder households with appropriate Regional Communications Specialist,
nutrition information and counseling for infant International Potato Center
I have also used this income to construct a
second house just nearby. Because of the regular
income I was receiving from OFSP I was able to
get a loan from the bank to build the second
house. I rent the house to a tenant, which means
that I have extra income for my family. One day I
will give the second house to my son to live in.
In Rwanda, the International Potato Center
(CIP) is disseminating technologies for Orange
Fleshed Sweetpotato to smallholder farmers and
working to link these farmers to markets for
fresh roots as well as commercial processors. e
Scaling up Sweetpotato through Agriculture and
Nutrition project (SUSTAIN) in Rwanda has
e main house on Marie Claire's farm where
she lives with her children and to which she has
recently been able to connect with electricity and TV.
Photo by S. Quinn/CIP
been designed together with the Rwanda Bureau
of Agriculture (RAB) to integrate its nutrition
messages and support activities with the
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[17] FARMERS
REVIEW AFRICA
July - August 2017