This presentation is described by the abstract below:

The International Potato Center through its OFSP value chain projects in Nigeria conceived demand creation for the crop to improve health of the pupils and wealth of the people through inclusion in the existing school feeding program of Osun state. Two major steps taken to achieve this were advocacy and sensitization. The process commenced with advocacy visits to all identified stakeholders, which include policy makers, especially the Deputy Governor of the state who doubles up as the Honorable Commissioner for Education. The visits were to educate them on the inherent nutritional and economic benefits of the crop, which include reduced incidence of vitamin A deficiency problem that is long standing in Nigeria; income generation for youths and women especially the school cooks and small scale processors. Through the pupils, households can have access to the vitamin A rich crop for improved household food and nutrition security. The advocacy visits were complemented with statewide stakeholders’ sensitization, which was organized in 6 representative schools in the six zones of the state. All relevant stakeholders – head and health teachers, Parent-Teachers Associations, school cooks, farmers and O-MEALS team – were sensitized on the importance, agronomical, nutritional and economic benefits of OFSP while myths around sweetptoato were dispelled. On the spot cooking demonstration and sensory/acceptability assessment of OFSP pottage was also done participatorily. Feedbacks from the sensitization on the OFSP pottage acceptance were taken back to the Deputy Governor who finally gave her approval for inclusion in the school menu. The actual feeding of the pupils with OFSP pottage started with a pilot in eight (4,160 pupils) purposively selected schools for a term to assess flow of the process and possibilities of scaling-up. Base and end line surveys were carried out in some of the pilot and few control schools on acceptance of the meal, knowledge of teachers on OFSP and other related issues for impact assessment, appropriate strategies for scaling up and certainty of sustainability while monitoring of the pilot was ensured on weekly basis throughout the pilot. The OFSP meal inclusion pilot in the school menu went appreciably well although limited by the cooks and farmers inability to quantify roots needed for cooking and roots expected from planting respectively. This affected proper planning of the pilot, which resulted in scarcity of roots towards the end of the term, thus necessitating root sourcing from outside Osun state to keep the pilot on till the end.