RALEIGH (May 30, 2024) – Those sweet potato fries you had the other night? Odds are Craig Yencho had a hand in them.
Yencho was recognized by the UNC Board of Governors last week with the O. Max Gardner Award, established in the late governor’s will to recognize faculty who “made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race.” It’s the highest honor the Board awards UNC System faculty.
Yencho, the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Horticultural Science, came to NC State University in 1996 as the trailing spouse in a dual-career couple – his wife, Gina Fernandez, is a renowned fruit breeder.1
Like a modern-day Gregor Mendel, Yencho went to work first breeding varieties of potatoes, then sweet potatoes with research partner Kenneth Pecota.
Two years into the sweet-potato program, they came across the 608th variety they’d bred that year flourishing in an abundant clump at the end of a test farm field.
THAT BECAME THE COVINGTON sweet potato, known for its high yield, flavor and nutritional value. Released in 2005, it now accounts for 90% of North Carolina’s sweet-potato crop and 20% of the nationwide crop.
The federal buyout of tobacco quotas that for decades had given farmers a license to grow tobacco happened a few years earlier, Yencho explains, and North Carolina farmers were looking to diversify their crops.
“This allowed our growers to bring sweet potato into their farming systems. It’s accounted for over $4 billion – I say that again, 4 billion dollars – in farm gate value, primarily in Central and Eastern North Carolina,” he says.
“And that’s helped lift farmers and their families across the state.”
Yencho told university leaders last week that he’s gratified many of the state’s sweet potatoes are produced in the state’s poorest counties that desperately need jobs.
Covington has become popular in those ubiquitous sweet-potato fries, sure, but also nutritious food additives and even an artisanal sweet-potato vodka that’s described as the Best Yam Vodka on Earth.2
“That all started with Craig Yencho,” says NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson.
FOR YENCHO, A ONE-TIME PEACE CORPS volunteer, the work didn’t stop in North Carolina.
Craig Yencho isn’t “just” a horticulturist – he’s a humanitarian.
He explained to the Board of Governors how sweet potatoes are rich in beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A, which is critical to eyesight in young children and to pregnant women.
Vitamin A deficiency is the leading preventable cause of blindness in the world.3 The World Health Organization estimates that as many as 500,000 children a year go blind due to a lack of vitamin A, and half of them die within a year of losing their sight.4 It’s part of a downward nutritional spiral.
So with help from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others, Yencho formed networks to introduce sweet potatoes as a nutrient-rich food source in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Dr. Bonny Oloka came to NC State from Uganda to learn more about sweet potato research.
“People in Africa never knew that sweet potato would be any color except white, or yellow,” Oloka says.
“But now, trained from North Carolina State, who went to Uganda and to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, (we have) improved sweet-potato varieties that have increased amounts of beta-carotene in them, to solve (vitamin) deficiency problems that had been prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.”
YENCHO’S WORK took more than 25 years to reach maturity. It’s a case study in how university research can take decades – not just an election cycle – to sometimes very literally bear fruit.
And when it does, it can be an investment with monumental payoff.
Something that makes sure a young child in Africa you’ve never met can still see. Imagine that – no, picture it.
“Dr. Yencho’s work in sweet potato research not only helps drive economic prosperity for our state, it helps fortify the health of populations across the globe,” said Woodson.5
It’s a long-term undertaking. In this 2015 video, Woodson discussed how NC State helped North Carolina farmers lead the nation in sweet-potato production at the same time it introduced them as a vital food source in Africa.
“We’ve had a global impact,” Yencho told the UNC board. “But we’ve also had a very, very local impact. And I’ve never lost sight of that.”
1 https://news.giving.ncsu.edu/2021/05/breeding-a-berry-successful-career/.
2 http://hamfarms.com/our-products/covington-spirits; https://ncfieldfamily.org/food/cheers-to-north-carolina-distillers-using-locally-grown-products/.
3 https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency/.
4 https://www.who.int/data/nutrition/nlis/info/vitamin-a-deficiency.
5 https://www.northcarolina.edu/news/dr-craig-yencho-receives-2024-o-max-gardner-award/.
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