Orange fleshed sweet potato technology toolkit catalog. TAAT Clearinghouse technical report series 005

Abstract

This catalog describes a suite of technologies related to the modernization of sweet potato production in Africa. It is based upon the combined efforts of the Project Platform for Agricultural Solutions (ProPAS), an information internet site, and the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation, a large collaborative program that is deploying agricultural solutions across the continent. Both activities are based upon the imperative to better connect proven technologies to those who need them, but each undertakes this goal in a very different manner. One of TAAT’s priority commodities is the Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP), a biofortified crop with huge potential to improve food and nutritional security across Africa. During its development, ProPAS has accumulated several technologies that specifically address this commodity and we have compiled them into a “technology toolkit” designed to advance understanding and encourage adoption and investment into the proven agricultural solutions that advance this crop. This is the first of several catalogues that we intend to produce as a joint ProPAS-TAAT activity. The Product Platform for Agricultural Solutions (ProPAS) provides a mechanism to compile and access innovations, management technologies, and products needed for Africa’s agricultural transformation. The platform provides two pathways: it permits users to enter their proven and promising solutions into a database and then encourages others to sort through its options to reveal the suite of opportunities that can assist their agricultural objectives. ProPAS results from the recognized need by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to compile and access the full range of agricultural solutions available to modernize and transform African agriculture more systematically. Its overall goal is to accelerate the process of agricultural transformation in Africa. Many solutions are available to improve and modernize Africa’s food systems but those who benefit from them most are often unaware of the best options at hand. In addition, more solutions are in the research and development pipeline that are best advanced through wider exposure and validation. Solution profiling is compiled and released in a systematic manner that involves submission by technology holders, entry into a user-friendly software platform, and use by an expanding base of clients. A small committee of agricultural experts oversees this process but recognizes that its strength is through open-ended access to a marketplace of solutions. ProPAS is therefore managed through a three-phase process that involves solution submission, database management, and client access. The database allows for solutions to be identified through the selection of several search fields related to the form, type, commodity application, and target beneficiaries of a given solution, sequentially narrowing the number of platform recommendations. The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) is a program led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) that has pioneered new approaches to the deployment of proven technologies to African farmers. TAAT arose as a common effort of IITA and the African Development Bank (AfDB), and is an important component of the latter’s Feed Africa Strategy. TAAT is currently advancing 106 carefully selected technologies through 143 interventions in 27 countries. It is organized around 15 “Compacts” that represent priorities in terms of achieving Africa’s potential in achieving food security and advancing its role in global agricultural trade. Nine of these Compacts relate to specific priority value chains of rice, wheat, maize, sorghum and millet, cassava, sweet potato, bean, fish, and small livestock. Weaknesses in the production of commodities are viewed as responsible for Africa’s food insecurity, need for excessive importation of food, and unrealized expansion of Africa’s food exports. Together these Compacts design interventions in collaboration with national programs to introduce technologies and management innovations that are designed to meet targets for agricultural development. In many cases, these targets are addressed through the implementation of projects resulting from sovereign country loans awarded by development banks, and TAAT’s role in the planning and execution of these loan projects is becoming a vital element of their success. The Clearinghouse developed a database of the Top 100 Technologies that are transforming African agriculture. It is based upon the approaches of the TAAT Commodity Compacts but also includes those from the CGIAR Collaborative Research Programs that are recently described as ready for the next user. These technologies are divided between those involving improved genetics and plant and animal breeding (23%), those based upon the distribution of digital information (3%), production input products of proven efficacy (21%), crop and animal management technologies of utility within agricultural extension messaging and campaigns (27%) and the availability of appropriately designed labor-saving equipment (26%). These technologies have a direct role in the achievement of the Strategic Development Goals in relationship to farm productivity, food security and hunger reduction, improved household nutrition and diets, economic growth, climate-smart innovation, and improved human equity. These technologies form the basis for selecting entries into ProPAS, including those advancing Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato. This catalog presents ten technologies that modernize sweet potato production and processing in Africa. These technologies include: 1) OFSP as a more nutritive alternative to traditional “pale” varieties, 2) cultivation of selected drought and virus tolerant OFSP varieties where needed, 3) the newer Purple Sweet Potato that is higher in antioxidants, 4) community-based cutting production to disseminate this vegetatively propagated crop, 5) tent-style greenhouse production of vines and cuttings to make these propagules pest and disease-free, 6) raised bed production as a means of soil fertility and weed management; 7) use of specially blended fertilizers that are better adjusted to crop demand, 8) relay intercropping with legumes as a farm enterprise strategy, 9) silage production from sweet potato vines as a source of nutritious livestock feed, and 10) puree production as a means of value-addition for use in a wide variety of food products. Details on each of these ten technologies follow. This catalog provides a wide variety of options for modernizing sweet potato production and processing in Africa. It identifies means to improve the nutritional value of sweet potatoes and to grow varieties that resist drought and disease. It provides better options for the vegetative propagation of these new varieties, particularly by raising cutting materials under vector-free conditions within affordable protective structures. It advances field production by signaling the importance of raised bed cultivation, better mineral nutrition from specially blended fertilizers, and the advantages of intercropping sweet potatoes with grain legumes. Sweet potato residues are also valuable, particularly as animal feeds and the catalog provides a means to preserve feeds by ensiling its vines. While sweet potatoes are an important human food, it may also be processed into a wide variety of products and the preparation of puree is one means to add value to this crop. This catalog was prepared with a variety of users in mind whether they be producers, agents of agricultural development, or private sector investors. Farmers can use many of these catalog items as production guidelines. Those from the public sector can utilize the catalog as a whole and design agricultural projects involving sweet potato around its toolkit of modernizing technologies. Members of the private sector, including propagators, input manufacturers, processors, and investors also benefit from the contents of this catalog. Indeed, The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation Program’s Clearinghouse welcomes feedback on its contents.