Nigeria and 13 other African countries will benefit from the `Sweet Potato for Profit and Health Initiative,’ being developed by the International Potato Centre based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Mrs Jan Low, team leader of the initiative, while speaking with journalists  in Abuja said “Nigeria’s participation in the initiative will increase productivity of sweet potato and create direct employment for about 1.5 million Nigerian farmers,” she said.

She said the initiative, launched in 2009,  would impact on  the lives of 10 million African households in 14 African countries by 2020, “ through effective and diversified use of sweep potato.”

She said East Africans appreciated the value of sweet potato more than West Africans. She expressed dismay that Nigeria, the second largest producer of sweet potato in sub-Saharan Africa, “is adding little or no value to the crop which has a short planting period”.

She expressed concern that the crop was being underutilised in Nigeria, noting that its cultivation did not require much labour like yam and other crops.

Low said the initiative has become imperative because West Africans, including Nigerians, had not yet recognised sweet potato as a vital ingredient in food development and security.

According to Low, consumption of potato is good for the health of consumers because it is fortified with vitamins C, K and E. She said that apart  from these vitamins, potato is also fortified with potassium which is good for children’s daily need.

Mrs Jan Low said sweet potato did not contain glucose, adding the crop could be used as flour to bake bread, especially now that the cost of wheat flour had sky rocked across the world. “Sweet potato is so dynamic and you can use it for so many things.

“In many countries, the increase in the price of wheat flour is affecting many bakeries and sweet potato can serve as a good and economic substitute,’’ Low said.

She said the centre would train farmers in Africa including Nigeria on the immense value of sweet potato and its usefulness as a means of alleviating poverty.