The Purple Sweet Potato

The locally grown Purple Sweet Potato is the story of a plant from the Americas journey of 500 years around the world to return and fuel innovation in our local farming communities. It is story of a search for a healthy and sustainable crop to help diversify farmers from tobacco. A story of a unique plant, returned from Asia, and a local group working to expand the reach and impact of the crop to drive local food enterprises, technology and market horizons.

The Stokes Purple is a sweet potato cultivar (Ipomoea batatas) developed and promoted by StokesCORE, a local nonprofit economic development agency, to help Stokes County farmers diversify production and preserve rural heritage. Its striking color comes from its anthocyanin content, consumption of which is linked to reduced cardiovascular disease.

The sweet potato (not the same as the yam, Dioscorea alata) originated in Mesoamerica and was among many important world foods discovered and developed by generations of Pre-Columbian agriculturalists. Columbus brought it to Europe(1500) where it was carried to the Philippines, then China, India and Southeast Asia. In the late 1600s it was grown in Virginia. By 1700 it arrived in Japan. Today the sweet potato is an important world food. In the US, North Carolina is the largest sweet potato producer.