When I heard that my colleague Scott Christiansen and I were assigned to look at the value chain of sweetpotatoes in Tanzania I assumed we’d be looking at the same orange, white, or purple tubers that make their way into our meals in a hundred different forms.
But in Tanzania, especially in the Singida region, the story doesn’t start or end underground. People eat the leaves. These aren’t the same varieties grown for tubers. These are specially bred for foliage—nutrient-rich, fast-growing, and central to household cooking.
I saw the sweetpotato story from field to plate during our recent visit to Singida with researchers from the World Vegetable Center, supported by Crop Trust’s BOLDER Project.
Our journey began in Mumbivi where we walked through some of the neatest plots I’ve ever seen—clean, weed-free, and glowing with health. The farmers started up an irrigation pump and flattened the plants with water. I watched the farmer’s daughter Jasmin harvest by slicing stems cleanly with a small knife. They’d be fully wilted by evening, but most likely consumed well before that.
From there, we drove to Mwanganjuki, where the real magic happens: the cooking. A group of women welcomed us into their courtyard and set about preparing three different types of sweetpotato leaves—one with deep red veins, another bright green, and a third dried for storage.
We watched them cook as the story unfolded over fire and steam. The leaves softened down in the pot, mixed with onion, tomato, lime and a little oil, transforming into something vibrant and alive.
We ate it all with finger millet ugali. And what struck me most wasn’t just how nutritious these greens are (though they truly are nutritional powerhouses). It was how good they tasted. Simple, honest food with layers of flavour shaped by land, labour, and tradition.
It’s one thing to read about the nutitrional value of sweetpotato leaves through scientific journals. It’s another to sit in a Singida courtyard, sharing a meal that has fed families for generations, and realise how much beauty and great taste grows from the most unassuming parts of a plant.
