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Partnering For Impact World Vision and HarvestPlus Improve Lives in Vulnerable Communities

HarvestPlus and World Vision first started working together in 2007 to introduce vitamin A-biofortified orange sweet potato in Mozambique. This led to a broader partnership that continues to thrive, benefitting many thousands of people in Africa and Asia who are vulnerable to the serious health impacts of micronutrient deficiency, or “hidden hunger.”

HarvestPlus and World Vision found they can generate more impact together by harnessing their respective skill sets, strengths, and networks. They recognized early on that collaboration between them and with a broad swath of stakeholders was crucial to sustainably scaling up biofortification.

“This is a win-win relationship. World Vision’s long-held experience supporting vulnerable communities, and the networks they have established among these communities, greatly facilitate our engagement in the field.” — Arun Baral, Chief Executive Officer of HarvestPlus.
“Through this collaboration with HarvestPlus…we are discovering important lessons and innovations that we can scale through the 149,000 Community Health Workers with whom we work globally. We are thrilled and humbled to be part of this collaborative work.” — Tom Davis, World Vision's Partnership Leader for Health and Nutrition

HarvestPlus and World Vision have been able to progressively increase the number of countries where World Vision’s integrated programs include biofortified crops. In tandem with other proven strategies—dietary diversity, fortification, and supplementation—their mutual goal is to improve nutritional status, incomes, and health outcomes for vulnerable households, especially among those most at risk of micronutrient deficiencies.

The ENRICH Project: Improving both nutrition and livelihoods

The multi-country ENRICH program, launched in 2016, focuses on reducing maternal and child mortality through directly addressing malnutrition in the first 1,000 days of life (conception to 24 months). World Vision Canada (WVC), Nutrition International, and the Canadian Society for International Health are the implementing partners for the project in Kenya, Tanzania, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. HarvestPlus is the technical partner for biofortification.

“The ENRICH program promotes orange sweet potato (OSP), iron beans, and zinc rice in project sites in Kenya, Bangladesh and Tanzania. The crops are well received by the communities and the demand for vines, seeds, and techncial support is increasing over the years,” said Dr. Asrat Dibaba, Chief of Party for the ENRICH Program at World Vision Canada. “There is also improved knowledge on the benefits of consumption of these corps among primary caretakers of children under 5 years of age.”

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Bangladesh: Reaching farmers with zinc rice

Hamidul working in his rice field

The ENRICH program in Bangladesh is expected to reach more than 400,000 target beneficiaries. As part of the program, thousands of farming families in the northwest district of Thakurgaon have been introduced to cultivation of zinc-biofortified rice varieties.

Hamidul Islam lives with his family of eight in Thakurgaon. He became a beneficiary of the ENRICH project in 2016 and has been growing biofortified zinc rice ever since.

In 2019-20, Hamidul cultivated BRRI dhan74 seed on his land which yielded him about 8.29 tons per hectare. “This season I kept a higher percentage of the harvest for my family’s consumption because this zinc biofortified rice provides important nutrition to my children and grandchildren,” said Hamidul.

Hamidul and his family are also encouraging their neighbors and others in the community to replace non-biofortified varieties with zinc-biofortified rice to improve the health of their children.

As of June 2020, more than 47,000 farming families in Bangladesh had received biofortified zinc rice seed through ENRICH, and on average, the amount of zinc rice produced by each farming household was equivalent to eight months of rice supplies for an average Bangladeshi family. The ENRICH project has an extended target of reaching more than 92,000 rice farmers with biofortified zinc rice by the project end date in March 2021.

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Tanzania: Improving nutrition through sweet potato nurseries

Monique and Pascal showing the sweet potatoes from their nursery

Monique and Pascal are extension officers who manage an OSP nursery in the Shinyanga district of Tanzania. They have developed the nursery into a viable source of income for their family and plan on expanding the business.

Monique received specialized training from HarvestPlus and the Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (TARI) through the ENRICH program on how to run a sweet potato nursery. As an extension officer in Shinyanga district, Monique went on to organize secondary seed multipliers to multiply vines. Monique did not stop at vine multiplication; she went on to produce OSP tubers which she sells in markets as far away as Dodoma, the national capital, and Dar es Salaam.

Said Monique: “The training from the ENRICH program is rewarding as it provided a source of income for so many people in my community through the OSP nurseries, and it also provided nutritious potatoes that the kids enjoyed.”

Monique plans to scale up the nursery she is managing and invest more in the multiplication operation in the next season. Her leadership and her work also inspired other extension officers to set up nurseries as businesses in their respective areas, using their own resources. This ripple effect is precisely what the program aims to achieve: nurseries that become commercially viable and self-sustaining.

More than 12,000 new households had been reached as of June 2020 with OSP vines, which was 62 percent of the target for the year 2020.

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Kenya: A champion in the County Of Champions

Hellen standing in her orange sweet potato farm

Hellen Maina is a Community Health Volunteer in Keiyo South in Marakwet County (also known as the County of Champions), in the North Rift Valley of Kenya. She was introduced to biofortification by the ENRICH program, which provided her with vitamin A OSP vines.

In Kenya, 60,000 farming families are receiving more than 30 million OSP cuttings through the program’s 39 community nurseries. Hellen received specialized training on how to grow the sweet potatoes. She then received and planted 1500 vines of a variety called Kenspot4, to grow on about a quarter of an acre. Since the season was a little dry, she irrigated her sweet potatoes with water from a nearby spring. Currently Hellen has harvested, consumed, and sold more than 450 kg of OSP.

Hellen is very happy with her earnings as she says that no alternative crops (onion, beetroot, or maize) that are grown in the area could have given her that much income. A fact that another farmer Samson Kigen Chelagat confirmed.

Being the champion that she is, Hellen received training on value addition and made other products from the OSP like chapatti and mandazi which she sells to the community from her shop. She also wants to introduce sweet potato porridge to the elementary school children in her area so that the children may have meals that are more nutritious at school.

Said Hellen: “In addition to providing good income, the crop is also cheap to produce.”

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Scaling up through partnership

HarvestPlus and World Vision look forward to continuing to scale up theirimpactful work. “As awareness of biofortified crops and their health impacts increase, demand is also equally increasing. There are still large numbers of families to be reached with this intervention, said ENRICH Chief of Party Dibaba.

“We also need to ensure sustainability and local ownership of promotion of biofortification. World Vision aims to continue working with HarvestPlus to meet these goals through a potential phase II funding of the ENRICH program.”