Welcome to the World Sweetpotato Atlas, an ongoing project sponsored by the International Potato Center (Centro Internacional de la Papa, or CIP). The atlas is intended to provide a forum for information exchange about sweetpotato cultivation and use around the developing world, presented in a wider context of international agricultural development.
Each country chapter is organized into several sections, including:
History and Overview;
Geography and Production Zones;
Production Systems and Constraints;
Varieties and Seed Systems;
Consumption, Storage, and Marketing;
Research Facilities and Contacts.
Although the atlas is intended primarily for people with a general interest in agricultural development, links to other websites address topics of more specialized research. (Some are included as relevant in country chapters. Others are listed under "Sweetpotato Info Links.") We have attempted to provide the most authoritative and complete information available for each country, but much of this information is available only as "gray literature." Unfortunately, this is most often the case for countries facing the greatest poverty, hence of greatest interest to CIP.
Only a few countries are initially included here, clearly not all where sweetpotato is an important crop. Instead, we have tried to provide more intensive treatment of a representative sample, with primary attention to those where sweetpotato production can help meet the food security and economic development needs of the world's poorest people. This selection has been guided primarily by CIP's Vision, an exercise on the part of CIP to prioritize research efforts and their regional applications consistent with the United Nations Millennium Development Targets.
In some areas of the world, sweetpotato is a critically important staple food, while in others the crop is being developed for a wide variety of products, from animal feed to industrial starch. Central and southern Africa has become a particularly important regional focus, as sweetpotato is currently being developed as a means to address a serious nutritional challenge, Vitamin A deficiency. That effort is the focus of Vitamin A for Africa -- VITAA
The potential benefit of this project depends on its active use as a means of information exchange. Further contributions and dialogue are very welcome (Contact us), and any contributors will be acknowledged. We hope that this project will continue to grow with the ongoing participation of clients like you.
THE WORLD SWEETPOTATO ATLAS
