The Building Nutritious Food Baskets (BNFB) project is testing a scaling up model through a multiple crops “food basket” approach, drawing on complementary CGIAR expertise for scaling up biofortified crops in particular. The  model being tested focuses on i) advocacy efforts aimed at catalysing policy change and mobilizing resource commitments; ii) strengthening community, national and regional  institutional capacities; and iii) disseminating proven biofortified technologies ready for scaling up.

The three-year BNFB project (November 2015 – October 2018) adopts a multi-crop (‘food basket’) approach and is being implemented in Nigeria and Tanzania. It builds on the success of the Reaching Agents of Change (RAC) project that tested innovative approaches to generate investment, reach policy makers and train advocates and implementers using nutritious orange-fleshed sweetpotato to combat vitamin A deficiency in selected African countries. BNFB advocates for increased investment in biofortified staples as a sustainable way to combat hidden hunger, especially among young children under the age of five years and women of reproductive age. BNFB also focuses strengthening the enabling environment for increased investments in biofortified crops and developing institutional and individual capacities to produce and consume biofortified crops. Its efforts contribute to the broader Sweetpotato for Profit and Health Initiative (SPHI), which aims to improve the lives of 10 million African families by 2020 by increasing their access to improved sweetpotato varieties and their diversified use.