Sweetpotato is a staple food in Uganda and mainly eaten boiled or steamed. Raw and boiled or steamed root characteristics need to be considered when evaluating sweetpotato clones. The preferred characteristics of raw sweetpotato roots include good storage root shape (preferably oval), smooth skin, moderate to plenty of sap, absence of discoloration or darkening after peeling, easy to peel, low water content and long shelf life. The preferred characteristics of boiled sweetpotatoes include attractive flesh colour (which may be white, yellow or orange), sweetness, mealy (powdery), soft to firm (hard), not fibrous and having a characteristic sweetpotato aroma. Raw sweetpotato roots may be washed or unwashed before peeling. The peeled roots are wrapped in banana leaves, placed in a saucepan containing water, banana stalks and banana leaf midribs at the base and steamed for about 50 to 60 minutes, and served at 80°C. If sweetpotato is boiled, no wrapping is used and the roots are placed directly into a saucepan containing only water.

Sweetpotato is one of the most important food crops worldwide, with approximately 106 million tonnes produced in about 120 countries, occupying an area of about 8 million ha with an average global yield of 11.1 tonnes/ha. Asia is the world’s largest sweetpotato-producing continent, with a total crop of 79 million tonnes, followed by Africa (FAOstat, 2016). About 75% of global production is from China alone. A total of 21.3 million tonnes is produced in Africa, with 48% from the Great Lakes region. The main producers and consumers in sub-Saharan Africa are Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.