By Pam Haigh | Project Leader
Well - thanks to your suppport, the farmers who received the vines have now harvested their first crop and we have just carried out some research to see how the project is going. We talked to 167 farmers in six different locations to find out if there were any problems and to get their feedback. Across the six locations, the yield from the farmers we interviewed totalled almost 22,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes - suggesting that for all 3,000 farmers the total yield from this first harvest is almost 400,000 kilos. A fantastic first harvest which is improving the diets of people in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Most farmers said the benefits included access to more food, opportunity to earn an additional income and also that they tasted much better than the current local variety. Others claimed that they felt healthier and had more energy.
‘I am able to sell the excess sweet potato to buy books, pens and clothes” Patson
‘I feel good that I am enabling others to benefit by sharing the vines’ Dinah
‘We now have extra food for lunch and it is a good replacement for nsima’ Eshart
‘We are able to feed the children now before they go to school’ Margaret
Thousands of children are now benefitting from the additional Vitamin A provided by these new varieties of sweet potato. These farmers also shared excess vines with 4 or 5 additional farmers so the next harvest will benefit even more children.
From the survey, we identified a need to provide more information to the new farmers receiving the surplus vines to make sure that they understand how to maximise the yield. We have identified one variety that is much higher yielding and was found to be better tasting than the others. This is the variety that we will now provide and we are looking into extending the reach of the project to benefit even more people. A great story of Africans helping each other, with the support of RIPPLE Africa - and of course you!
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