Biofortified crops for “health and wealth”, but for whom? A gendered analysis of sweet potato promotion in Tanzania

Abstract

ABSTRACT From 1991–2016, A variety of development actors promoted the production, consumption and sales of biofortified orange sweet potato (OFSP) across Sub-Saharan Africa. OFSP is described as a food-based solution to vitamin A deficiency and more broadly malnutrition in children, as well as presents income-generation opportunities for women. This article examines the long-term impact of OFSP on sweet potato producer’s everyday lives and the ways in which the product’s promotion reinforced normative gendered labour roles in food production, provision and sales in Mwasongwe village in Tanzania. The article suggests that the technical framing of nutritional health disregards the environmental, social and economic conditions that shape everyday relations to food and diets.