Africa’s Top Sweet Potato Producers in 2022: The Continent Feeding Itself One Root at a Time
Sweet potatoes are quietly doing some of the heaviest lifting in African agriculture. Drought-tolerant, fast-maturing, and packed with beta-carotene, vitamin C, and complex carbohydrates, they sustain hundreds of millions of people across the continent — from highland smallholders in Rwanda to lowland farmers in Angola’s Malanje Province. In 2022, Africa produced a staggering 29,530,153 tonnes of sweet potatoes, according to FAO data, cementing its position as the world’s dominant sweet potato-growing region.
Malawi Leads the Continent by a Commanding Margin
No country on the African continent comes close to Malawi’s sweet potato output. In 2022, Malawi produced 8,051,118 tonnes — more than 27% of the entire continent’s harvest — a figure that places this landlocked southern African nation among the top sweet potato producers globally. The Central Region’s fertile lakeshore plains, particularly around Lake Malawi, provide ideal sandy-loam soils and reliable rainfall patterns that sweet potatoes thrive in. The crop is deeply embedded in Malawian food culture; it serves as a primary staple for rural households, especially during the “hunger season” between maize harvests. Government programs promoting orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) varieties have also played a role, addressing vitamin A deficiency in children under five while simultaneously boosting farm income.
East Africa Dominates the Production Landscape
Tanzania ranked second in 2022 with 4,259,620 tonnes, driven by production in regions such as Iringa, Mbeya, and Dodoma, where root and tuber crops form the backbone of smallholder agriculture. Nigeria followed closely in third place with 4,011,035 tonnes — a significant figure for West Africa, where sweet potatoes have historically played second fiddle to yam and cassava. Nigerian farmers in Benue, Kaduna, and Plateau States have increasingly adopted improved sweet potato varieties that offer higher yields and better resistance to weevil damage, a chronic pest problem in the region.
Rwanda and Uganda — both landlocked East African nations — produced 1,372,745 and 1,337,512 tonnes respectively. Rwanda’s performance is particularly notable given its small land area of just 26,338 square kilometres. The Rwandan government has invested heavily in biofortified OFSP varieties through partnerships with organizations like CIP (International Potato Center), achieving some of the highest yields per hectare on the continent. Uganda’s production is concentrated in the Eastern and Western regions, where sweet potatoes are consumed boiled, roasted, and increasingly processed into flour for commercial use.
Angola, Ethiopia, and Madagascar: Diverse Geographies, Shared Dependence
Angola produced 1,873,002 tonnes in 2022, ranking fourth overall. Much of this production is concentrated in the country’s central highlands — particularly Huambo and Bié provinces — where altitude moderates temperatures and rainfall is relatively reliable. Sweet potatoes are a critical food security crop in post-conflict rural Angola, where subsistence farming remains the primary livelihood for a large share of the population. Ethiopia contributed 1,000,576 tonnes, with cultivation spread across the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) and parts of Oromia. In Ethiopia, sweet potatoes are often intercropped with maize and sorghum, maximizing land use efficiency on small plots.
Madagascar, the world’s fourth-largest island, produced 1,132,742 tonnes. The country’s extraordinary ecological diversity — ranging from humid eastern rainforest zones to drier western savannas — allows sweet potato cultivation across multiple agro-climatic belts. In Madagascar, the crop is known locally as patate douce and is consumed in both urban and rural markets, often boiled or fried as a street food staple in Antananarivo and other major cities.
Burundi and Kenya: Small Producers with Outsized Importance
Burundi produced 807,861 tonnes in 2022, a remarkable output for one of Africa’s smallest and most densely populated countries. With an average farm size of less than one hectare, Burundian farmers rely on sweet potatoes as both a caloric staple and a marketable commodity in local trading hubs like Bujumbura and Gitega. Kenya rounded out the top ten with 650,000 tonnes, with key growing areas in Western Kenya — particularly Vihiga, Siaya, and Kisumu counties — supplying both local consumption and cross-border trade into Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya’s National Potato Council and various NGOs have promoted drought-tolerant sweet potato varieties to help smallholders cope with increasingly erratic rainfall linked to climate change.
Why Sweet Potatoes Matter for Africa’s Agricultural Future
The collective output of these ten nations tells a larger story about African agriculture’s resilience and adaptability. Sweet potatoes require fewer inputs than maize, mature in as little as 90 days, and can be harvested progressively — making them an ideal crop for climate-vulnerable communities. Biofortified orange-fleshed varieties are now actively combating vitamin A deficiency across sub-Saharan Africa, a public health crisis that affects millions of children annually. As climate pressures intensify and food security demands grow, the sweet potato’s role on the continent is not merely historical — it is increasingly strategic.
