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SASHA Brief 2011: Marando Bora “Better vines” – For higher sweetpotato production in the Lake Zone of Tanzania

In Tanzania’s Lake Zone, sweetpotato is a critical food security crop as it supplements maize and cassava and serves as a stand by when other staples fail due to drought and disease. The orange-fleshed varieties (OFSP) offer high beta-carotene levels to combat vitamin A deficiency. It’s cropping cycle is short with high yields even under unpredictable rainfall pattern. This potential is compromised due to lack of sufficient and timely access to disease-free or ‘‘clean’’ planting material. This brief reports on effort of Marando bora project aimed at increase availability and timely access to clean planting material of existing and new improved varieties to 150,000 farmers in Tanzania’s Lake Zone. The access to timely, quality sweetpotato planting vines in the Lake Zone of Tanzania can improve food security and nutrition, especially during times of drought, crop disease, and hunger. The Marando Bora project has established and trained 27 decentralized vine multipliers (DVMs), who have distributed quality vines to 10,000 households. Working with women’s groups the project has increased women’s participation as vine multipliers to 70% and has ensured that 73% of the vine recipients were women.

HOW TO CITE

Melka, A.G., Namanda, S. and McEwan. M. 2011. Marando Bora “Better vines”-For higher sweetpotato production in the Lake Zone of Tanzania. International Potato Center (CIP).