Meet the humble sweet potato. Often treated simply as a staple or side dish, the sweet potato is a surprisingly nutritious crop. It provides dietary fibre, vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium and other minerals, while different varieties contain beneficial plant compounds such as carotenoids and anthocyanins. Research also suggests that sweet potato consumption may support healthier blood glucose and blood pressure.
But perhaps its most important nutritional advantage is found in orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. Their bright orange color comes largely from beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A. Vitamin A is essential for healthy vision, immune function, growth and development.
This matters enormously in Africa, where vitamin A deficiency remains a significant nutritional challenge, and this is where agriculture and science come together.
Researchers have developed biofortified orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties. Studies show that these varieties can improve vitamin A intake and status, particularly among children. One review found that 100 grams of orange-fleshed sweet potato can provide enough provitamin A to meet the daily vitamin A requirement of a young child.
In Nigeria, three vitamin A biofortified orange sweet potato varieties have already been released, while similar varieties have been developed across several African countries.
Sweet potato is already widely grown across Africa and can perform under challenging growing conditions. Biofortified varieties therefore offer something particularly valuable: a crop that can produce food while delivering more nutrition.
The challenge now is not simply growing more sweet potatoes. It is building stronger seed and vine systems, improving farmer access, expanding processing and value addition, and creating consumer demand. That is where the real opportunity lies.
For Africa, the future of agriculture will also be measured in nutrients delivered, healthier populations supported, and livelihoods created.
Sweet potatoes may look ordinary, but the crops with the greatest potential to transform our food system may be the ones we have underestimated for the longest time.
Sources: Global Food Security (2017); Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (2026); HarvestPlus Nigeria.
