Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.1, 11-19 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 17 8.3 Contribution to global food security and improved nutrition Sweet potato research, especially the orange-fleshed variety (OFSP), has indeed brought new ideas to solving global nutrition problems. Think about it, in places where people cannot afford to eat diversified foods, vitamin A deficiency is a big problem (Zhou and Jiang, 2024). By improving varieties and optimizing planting methods, this seemingly ordinary crop can now provide a lot of key nutrients. The example of southern Ethiopia is very telling-after the promotion of OFSP in the local area, not only the problem of eating has been alleviated, but also the dietary structure and health status have improved. But to be honest, in order for these results to truly benefit more people, we must also consider the planting conditions and eating habits in different regions. After all, no matter how good the variety is, the people must be willing to plant and eat it. In the final analysis, the greatest value of this research may be that it provides a practical solution to improve the problem of global malnutrition. Acknowledgments The author is very grateful to the sweet potato breeding expert Mr. Cai for carefully reading the initial draft of the paper and providing comprehensive feedback on its revisions; I would also like to express my gratitude to the two anonymous peer review experts for their feedback on this paper. Conflict of Interest Disclosure The author affirms that this research was conducted without any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. References Alam M., 2021, A comprehensive review of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas [L.] Lam): revisiting the associated health benefits, Trends in Food Science & Technology, 115: 512-529. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TIFS.2021.07.001 Alam M., Rana Z., and Islam S., 2016, Comparison of the proximate composition total carotenoids and total polyphenol content of nine orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties grown in Bangladesh, Foods, 5(3): 64. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods5030064 Ayvaz H., Bozdoğan A., Giusti M., Mortas M., Gómez R., and Rodriguez-Saona L., 2016, Improving the screening of potato breeding lines for specific nutritional traits using portable mid-infrared spectroscopy and multivariate analysis, Food Chemistry, 211: 374-382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2016.05.083 Brouwer R., Bocher T., and Low J., 2023, Quality diets for better health: integrated orange‐fleshed sweetpotato intervention improved dietary practice in Southern Ethiopia, Crop Science, 64(3): 1471-1485. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21090 Dhaliwal S., Sharma V., Shukla A., Verma V., Kaur M., Shivay Y., Nisar S., Gaber A., Brestič M., Bárek V., Skalický M., Ondrisik P., and Hossain A., 2022, Biofortification-A frontier novel approach to enrich micronutrients in field crops to encounter the nutritional security, Molecules, 27(4): 1340. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27041340 Garg M., Sharma N., Sharma S., Kapoor P., Kumar A., Chunduri V., and Arora P., 2018, Biofortified crops generated by breeding agronomy and transgenic approaches are improving lives of millions of people around the world, Frontiers in Nutrition, 5: 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2018.00012 Hameed A., Zaidi S., Shakir S., and Mansoor S., 2018, Applications of new breeding technologies for potato improvement, Frontiers in Plant Science, 9: 925. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.00925 Huey S., Mehta N., Konieczynski E., Bhargava A., Friesen V., Krisher J., Mbuya M., Monterrosa E., Nyangaresi A., Boy E., and Mehta S., 2022, Bioaccessibility and bioavailability of biofortified food and food products: current evidence, Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 64(14): 4500-4522. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2022.2142762 Kumar S., DePauw R., Kumar S., Kumar J., Kumar S., and Pandey M., 2022, Breeding and adoption of biofortified crops and their nutritional impact on human health, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1520(1): 5-19. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14936 Laurie S., Bairu M., and Laurie R., 2022, Analysis of the nutritional composition and drought tolerance traits of sweet potato: selection criteria for breeding lines, Plants, 11(14): 1804. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11141804 Laurie S., Faber M., Adebola P., and Belete A., 2015, Biofortification of sweet potato for food and nutrition security in South Africa, Food Research International, 76: 962-970. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.FOODRES.2015.06.001 Laveriano-Santos E., López-Yerena A., Jaime-Rodríguez C., González-Coria J., Lamuela-Raventós R., Vallverdú-Queralt A., Romanyà J., and Perez M., 2022, Sweet potato is not simply an abundant food crop: a comprehensive review of its phytochemical constituents biological activities and the effects of processing, Antioxidants, 11(9): 1648. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox11091648
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