The Building Nutritious Food Baskets (BNFB) project has promoted biofortified varieties with the help of local advocates, who have been trained with a toolkit of educational materials. In Nigeria and Tanzania, the advocates have become champions of biofortified crops such as vitamin A-rich varieties of cassava, sweetpotato, and maize and beans with high zinc and iron content. The advocates have … Read More

Plant breeders have strived for years to put nutrients, especially pro-vitamin A, into cassava and sweetpotato. Now the challenge is to follow the new varieties into the kitchen, to make sure that cooking and other processing methods retain the valuable nutrients, and that the prepared food is safe and nutritious. New varieties of RTB crops, especially cassava and sweetpotato, have … Read More

Feeding children orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes (OFSP) can help to alleviate vitamin A deficiency. Growing these improved sweetpotatoes is a necessary step, but is not enough. Mothers and caregivers also need training and support to learn how to prepare food safely while retaining vitamins to improve their young children’s nutrition. Integrated communication strategies using different channels are more effective than a one-off … Read More

Cassava peelings generate millions of tons of waste, and much of it is a source of pollution. In Nigeria, an RTB scaling champion, Iheanacho “Acho” Okike, and his team are sharing an appropriate technology with small-scale processors who turn the peels into an ingredient used to make high-quality animal feed, generating income, providing jobs and cleaning up the messy peels. … Read More