How Dr. Maria Andrade Revolutionized the Sweet Potato
As we close out Black History Month and enter Women’s History Month, we celebrate Dr. Maria Andrade whose contributions to plant science have revolutionized the use of sweet potatoes in global biofortification.
Dr. Andrade poses with sweet potatoes grown on a farm in Mozambique. Hugh Rutherford, CIP (2018).
Born in Cape Verde (off the coast of West Africa) in 1958, Dr. Andrade began her agricultural career when she started a Cape Verdean vegetable planting program in 1984. After receiving her doctorate in plant breeding from North Carolina State University in 1994, she worked for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture as a sweet potato agronomist for a research group in Southern Africa.
Dr. Andrade admires the leaves on one sweet potato variety in an indoor grow room at a research center in Mozambique. Isabel Corthier, CIP (2021).
Her love of sweet potatoes came from her love of the plants’ fast growing cycle, “Farmers have something to eat 60 days after planting,” and its versatility as a crop with both edible leaves and roots. In Mozambique and Uganda where she based her crop development projects, white-fleshed sweet potatoes were a diet and farm staple, but deficient in a crucial nutrient: vitamin A. The resulting health crisis—growing malnutrition, weakness, blindness, and high child mortality in southern Africa—urged her to respond by developing a staple crop that could withstand droughts and heavy rains, remain familiar for local farmers, and most importantly, taste good.
Andrade with her orange Land Cruiser advertising sweet potatoes. Dan Charles, NPR (2012).
“She created a marketing campaign for the potatoes, including radio advertisements and visits to villages in her bright orange Land Cruiser with sweet potatoes painted on the side. According to Charles, she taught children songs about the potato’s nutrition, put on skits about it and helped develop recipes for the potato. Potato advocates also helped farmers create small businesses selling cuttings of the vines” (Jason Daley for Smithsonian magazine, July 2016).
In just five years (2011-2016), Dr. Andrade and her team released 22 drought-tolerant and vitamin A-rich sweet potato varieties through the International Potato Center which are now grown across the globe. In 2016, her team won the World Food Prize for revolutionizing biofortification in southern Africa. In 2018, Andrade was nominated by the USDA as one of the Wonder Women of Agriculture, for promoting women’s leadership in agricultural science.
We know at EarthDance that food is medicine; rather than looking to supplements for improved health, Dr. Andrade brought attention to the nutritious wellspring that already exists in Mother Earth. By creating sustainable food production systems, jobs and economic stability for Mozambican farmers, her legacy teaches us how agronomy with holistic and thoughtful care can foster community health for generations.
Terms:
- Biofortification: the process of increasing the density of vitamins and minerals in staple crops through conventional plant breeding, transgenic techniques, or agronomic practices to combat hidden hunger.
- Transgenic: Transgenic organisms contain foreign DNA—transgenes—introduced from different species, enabling new traits for agricultural improvement and biomedical research.
- Agronomy: the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, fiber, and land reclamation, focusing on soil management and crop production.
Sources:
Dr. Maria Andrade | Wikipedia
Maria Andrade | CGIAR
“Take a bite out of Maria Andrade” | International Potato Center
Q&A with Maria Andrade: Breeding nutritious sweetpotatoes that farmers and families love | cipotato.org
“Why the Humble Sweet Potato won the World Food Prize” | Smithsonian magazine
How The Humble Orange Sweet Potato Won Researchers The World Food Prize | NPR