HarvestPius Project and Its Health Impact 1. HarvestPius Project aims to h

HarvestPlus Project and Its Health Impact
   Good morning, everyone. We know that Americans have an expression "If you
   give a person a fish, they will eat for a day. If you teach a person to fish, they can eat for a lifetime."
   One way to explain this is that helping people grow their own food is a better way to fight hunger. That is the purpose of an agricultural research organization called HarvestPlus.
   HarvestPlus is teaching people around the world how to grow what it calls "smart" crops. And today we are going to talk about its project in Mozambique, which is having surprising effects.
   In 2006, HarvestPlus workers provided orange sweet potato plants for people in 24 Mozambique villages. The workers taught these people how to grow the vegetables. They also explained the importance of Vitamin A to staying healthy.
   Farmers in Mozambique had been planting white and yellow sweet potatoes, not the orange-colored ones. The white and yellow potatoes have very little Vitamin A. However, one small, orange sweet potato has a full day’s supply of Vitamin A.
   A lack of Vitamin A is dangerous. Without enough Vitamin A, you face an increased risk of getting a serious disease or dying from infections. Sweet potatoes are loaded with Vitamin A. Vitamin A keeps your eyes healthy and helps the body fight infections.
   Around the world, 190 million young children are not getting enough of this important vitamin in the foods they eat. That number comes from the World Health Organization.
   According to Economist Alan de Brauw from the International Food Policy Research Institute, about 70 percent of children in Mozambique were Vitamin A deficient. They were not getting enough Vitamin A. Mr. de Brauw says the potatoes had a surprising effect on the health of children. At the end of a three-year study the Institute conducted, the researchers compared the health of children in villages growing orange sweet potatoes with those not growing them and found out that children living in the sweet potato villages had 40 percent fewer cases of diarrhea than other boys and girls. Among children under the age of three, the difference was 50 percent. According to Mr. de Brauw, showing the impact of a food-growing project on health is very important, because nobody has shown in the past that an agricultural production intervention can have big health impacts.
   Nutrition experts say vitamin supplements — that is, fluids or pills you take in addition to normal meals — can only do so much. One expert goes so far to say that supplements are a Band-Aid — a short-term fix to a long-term problem, which is that people are not having access to high-quality diets.
   Experts are suggesting that linking agriculture and health issues is a natural and effective partnership. They say teaching farmers how to grow healthier food is among the best ways to improve health. HarvestPlus is now helping farmers in other countries. And Mr. de Brauw helped to write a report on the Harvest Plus project. The report appeared in the journal World Development. If you are interested in it, you can read the report later by yourself and get to know more about the HarvestPlus project.