Solar-Dried Traditional African Vegetables in Rural Tanzania: Awareness, Perceptions, and Factors Affecting Purchase Decisions RADEGUNDA F. KESSY 1 ,JUSTUS OCHIENG * ,2 ,VICTOR AFARI-SEFA 3 , TAKEMORE CHAGOMOKA 4 , AND NGONI NENGUWO 5 1 International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), 2704, Arusha, Tanzania 2 World Vegetable Center, Eastern and Southern Africa, 10, Duluti, Arusha, Tanzania 3 World Vegetable Center, West and Central Africa–Coastal and Humid Regions, IITA-Benin Campus, 08 BP 0932 Tri Postal, Cotonou, Benin 4 Seed Co-The African Seed Company , Accra, Ghana 5 Harare, Zimbabwe *Corresponding author; e-mail: justus.ochieng@worldveg.org This paper analyzes rural households’ awareness, perceptions, and factors influencing decisions to purchase solar-dried traditional African vegetables (TAVs). Solar-dried vegetables have higher nutritive value, good appearance, good taste, and better hygiene than open sun–dried vegetables. A simple random sampling was used to obtain 244 rural households in Dodoma and Singida regions of Tanzania. Descriptive statistics were used to measure awareness and perception of solar-dried TAVs while logit regression was employed to estimate factors influencing households’ decision to purchase solar-dried vegetables. The study findings indicate that about 36% of rural households are aware of solar-dried TAVs and know their nutritional and health benefits. Most households purchase and consume the open sun–dried types due to lack of knowledge of the benefits of solar dried vegetables. The decision to purchase solar-dried vegetables is influenced by sex of household head, income level, previous experience in consuming sun-dried vegetables, and knowledge of the nutritional and health benefits of the solar-dried vegetables in diets. Thus, awareness creation and promotion of solar drying of TAVs is suggested as an effective way to continuously access nutritious vegetables, particularly in regions faced with frequent droughts. Key Words: Dried vegetables, open sun drying, solar drying, households, dehydrated produce, posthar- vest losses, Tanzania. Introduction Malnutrition is a public health problem that affects the entire population of Tanzania, but women and children are especially vulnerable (TDHS-MIS 2016). Malnutrition is caused by lack of iron and iodine, and vitamin A and zinc deficiencies, and is common in various rural communities of developing countries (Haas et al. 2016). This situation persists due to high consumption of diets mainly based on carbohydrate-rich staples with low minerals and vitamins (Leach and Kilama 2009).Vegetables, par- ticularly traditional African vegetables (TAVs), are rich in micronutrients (calcium, iron and phospho- rus, vitamins A and C, and proteins) and other health-promoting phytochemicals (Nesamvuni et al. 2001). Increased consumption of vegetables including TAVs has positive impacts and improves dietary diversity of households in Tanzania (Ochieng et al. 2017a; Ochieng et al. 2017b). TAVs are those whose natural habitat originated in Africa and have been integrated into cultures through natural or selective processes (Gido et al. 2016, 2017). Common TAVs varieties, which are 1 Received 26 March 2018; accepted 6 December 2018; published online ___________ Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-018- 9434-2) contains supplementary material, which is avail- able to authorized users. Economic Botany, XX(X), 2019, pp. 1–13 © 2019, by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A.