Vitamin A deficiency affects roughly 30% of Nigerian preschool children, contributing to childhood blindness and depressed immune function. Sweet potato (*Ipomoea batatas*), particularly orange-fleshed varieties, is one of the few staples that delivers meaningful beta-carotene without fortification or supplementation.
The National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, in partnership with the International Potato Center (CIP) and HarvestPlus, ran the African Sweet Potato Breeding Network's Nigerian arm from the early 2000s. Releases include UMUSPO-1 (Solo Gold), UMUSPO-2 (Mother's Delight) and UMUSPO-3 (Kabode) — high-dry-matter, virus-tolerant OFSP varieties suited to West and Central African agroecologies.
These varieties seeded the wider African biofortification programme; HarvestPlus reported that by 2018 over 6 million African households were consuming OFSP. The 2016 World Food Prize was awarded jointly to four CIP and HarvestPlus scientists for the OFSP work; the Nigerian breeding contribution sits inside that award.
Almost no commercial processing of OFSP exists in Nigeria itself.