Annual Report 2017

To say that vitamin A deficiency is a health issue in Eastern Africa is an understatement. 

Numbers of people especially children below five years old who are affected go way beyond the World Health Organization acceptable level of 15% and can reach 39% in Burundi and Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Vitamin A deficiency increases the risk of disease and death from severe infections among children and poor pregnancy outcomes among women. On top of that, it is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children. 

Many of these affected children live in places where bananas – diverse enough to have varieties naturally rich in vitamin A – are an important food crop. In Eastern Africa, people can eat as many as 11 bananas a day. In DRC, bananas are the second most popular staple after cassava. 

In Burundi and DRC, bananas – a term used to describe dessert bananas, cooking bananas and ensets – have a wide range of uses and recipes. Bananas of incredible colours, fascinating shapes and different sizes are consumed raw, boiled, pan fried, roasted, made into a flour for porridge and even mashed and fermented to make banana juice, beer and wine. 

Given the regional popularity of this fruit and the high vitamin A levels of some ‘international’ banana cultivars, Bioversity International scientists and authors of 'Sensory evaluation of provitamin A carotenoid-rich banana cultivars on trial for potential adoption in Burundi and Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo' decided to explore them for addressing vitamin A deficiency in the region.

As described in the study co-authored by Ekesa, Nabuuma, Kennedy and Van den Bergh, several vitamin A-rich cultivars show good potential for adoption within farming systems and diets in Burundi and DRC.

Initial feedback to introduced varieties has been positive in terms of their agronomic performance and peoples’ acceptance, with farmers’ showing high receptiveness and desire to share the introduced varieties with their neighbors and friends. 

So far, over 1,400 farmers have received more than 11,000 vitamin A-rich banana planting materials both directly from the research initiative and indirectly from fellow farmers. 

One of the first ones to take part in this process was Telesphore Ngaruye, a Burundian with almost 30 years of banana farming experience. Every year since 2014, he has been thrilled to see Apantu, Bira and Pelipita – varieties from Ghana, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, respectively – mature in his 20 acres large field alongside other banana varieties, maize, cassava, beans and numerous other vegetables. 

“I thought they were small [at first] but they have grown well and produced suckers which have enabled me to increase the number of mats on my farm. I was impatient to see the harvest […], but when the bananas reached maturity, I noticed that the bunches were good,” said Telesphore. He described his family enjoying the three varieties when cooked and served with beans. 

Because of ‘influencers’ such as Telesphore the word – and banana suckers – started to spread. 

“After eating some of the bananas at my home, they [community members] asked for the suckers so that they too could plant [them] in their fields,” he said. Between 2014 and 2017, Telesphore reported having shared the banana suckers with over 70 farmers, each receiving 3 to 5 suckers, many of whom were women as “men in the area are still interested in growing only the traditional beer bananas as a source of income”. 
 

Overall, 9,797 households in Burundi and DRC have been reached by Bioversity International and partners with information on banana management, nutrition and dietary diversity: knowledge that will be critical for the scaling up of this initiative. Based on these results, Bioversity International has extended this work to Tanzania and Uganda and plans are underway to include Kenya. 

While several of the vitamin A-rich cultivars showed good potential for adoption in Burundi and DRC, the authors concluded that the introduction of a new variety of any crop into people’s farms and diets cannot succeed without a firm understanding of whether people like how it looks and tastes. In all sites and for all of the cultivars used in the study – as described in the paper – there was a significant correlation between the scores for texture in the mouth, taste and the scores for peoples’ overall acceptability. 

Bioversity International and partners, in collaboration with the communities, are now following up with participatory development, organoleptic testing, and laboratory analysis of the nutrient content of recipes based on vitamin A-rich bananas. In addition, an efficacy study to establish the actual contribution of regular consumption of vitamin A-rich bananas on the body vitamin A stores is in the pipeline. The ultimate goal is to have millions of farmers and non-farming community members within Eastern Africa accessing and consuming diverse nutritious diets that incorporate vitamin A-rich bananas.

Contact: 
Beatrice Ekesa