| Summary: | The Reaching End Users (REU) project introduced orange sweet potatoes (OSP) to farmers in northern Mozambique between 2006 and 2009, and the associated cluster randomised control trial found increased vitamin A intake among targeted children and women of child-bearing age and reduced prevalence of inadequate vitamin A intake. Yet little is known about whether successful agricultural–nutrition interventions have lasting effects. This study measures the lasting effects of the REU project, 3 years after the project ended, on vitamin A intake. To do so, dietary intake data were collected in the same thirty-six villages as the original study, focusing on both women of child-bearing age and children under 6 years old, the latter including both children who had been measured before and younger children (under 3 years old) in the same farmer groups. The dietary intake is then converted to micronutrient intake to compare treated households with control households. Vitamin A intake remains higher in treated villages than in control villages among both children under 3 years old, who had not been born when the original intervention ended, and mothers of child-bearing age. Differences in vitamin A intake can wholly be attributed to differences in OSP intake. Therefore, the REU project appears to have had lasting impacts on vitamin A intake beyond the intervention period. Had the vine retention component been enhanced, lasting impacts could have been even larger.
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