Sweetening Lives with Sweetpotato | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

LIMA, Peru -- The International Potato Center has launched a major project to leverage the untapped potential of sweetpotato to significantly improve the nutrition, incomes, and food production of farming families in sub-Saharan Africa, especially among impoverished women and children. The project, titled Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA), will be implemented in eight Sub-Saharan African countries, and is supported by a five-year, $21 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is the largest of a group of grants presented by Bill Gates at the World Food Prize Symposium on October 15, 2009 in Des Moines, Iowa. “Melinda and I believe that helping the poorest small-holder farmers grow more and get it to market is the world's single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty,” Gates said. The SASHA program will help set the groundwork for reducing malnutrition, combating vitamin A deficiency, and improving incomes for 10 million African households within 10 years.

To read the full press release, visit the International Potato Center web site.