The Cassava Transformation: Africa's Best-Kept Secret

Chapter 3. Cassava's Multiple Roles

CHAPTER 3 cassava's Multiple Roles Introduction Cassava plays a number of different but equally important roles in African development, depending on the stage of the cassava transformation in a particular country. Among these roles are: famine reserve, rural food staple , cash crop, urban food staple, industrial raw material, and livestock feed. However, the bulk of cassava production in Africa is consumed as food. After accounting for waste, 93 percent of Africa's cassava production in the mid-1990s was consumed as food, 6 percent was used as livestock feed, and only 1 percent was used as industrial raw material. By contrast, 48 percent of the cassava production in Asia during the same period was consumed as food, 40 percent used for export, 8 percent used as livestock feed, and 4 percent used as industrial raw material (International Fund for Agricultural Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2000). In this chapter, we shall discuss the three major roles that cassava is currently playing in African development : famine-reserve crop, rural food staple, and cash crop for urban consumers. We shall show that because of inefficient production and 35 The Cassava Transformation processing methods, only a small percentage of Africa's total cassava production is used as livestock feed or as an industrial raw material. In Africa, most of the scientific research and donor attention has focused on cassava's role as a food crop. Yet we shall show that the heavy emphasis on cassava as a food crop is selling cassava short. Cassava has an untapped potential as a livestock feed and a source of raw material (e.g., cassava starch) for industry. The challenge ahead is to intensify public and private sector research on new uses for cassava, which can enhance cassava's contribution to development by creating jobs in rural areas as well as earning foreign exchange. famine-Reserve Crop Cassava's role as a famine-reserve crop is one of the main reasons why the crop is so popular in Africa. Cassava is ideally suited to this role. It can be planted at any time of the year, and its harvesting can be delayed, if necessary, without a major change in the composition and quality of roots. Since cassava roots can be left in the ground for up to four years before harvesting, cassava is used by families as a reserve in case of drought and famine. This wide flexibility in planting and harvesting enables farmers to allocate their spare time to cassava after attending to more season-bound crops. In some countries, such as the Congo and Tanzania , women often remove a few roots from a plant in the home garden for a meal and allow the plant to continue growing. Cassava is an important famine-reserve crop in countries such as Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia, where maize is the primary food staple and cassava is grown as a cushion against the instability in maize production created by erratic rainfall. Figure 3.1 shows that over the period from 1966 to 1996, the annual per capita maize production in Africa fluctuated, while cassava production remained almost stable from year to year. Cassava's year-round harvest availability, in contrast to grain such as maize, which has a harvest season of thirty to sixty days, is another important aspect of its role as a food reserve crop. Grain crops such as maize 36 140 120 ~ 'i 100 c II E 80 10 CI) I ... CI) eft 60 ... ~ GI i 40 ~ t. 20 .. ..·.·. ........ ". . . Cassa va's Multiple Roles Mean (1961-65 mean = 100)· . : ' : ',......... I·· ··· . . t,, , . , . , . , . , . .... Cassava . .. . . , . , . , . , . , . ..• 1 Maize ~ W ~ ~ % % 00 ~ M ~ W 00 ~ ~ 00 Year Figura 3.1. Africa: Indices of Per Capita Production of Cassava and Maize, 1966-96 (1961-65 mean =100 percent). Source: FAOSTAT. and sorghum are often abundant during harvesting season and scarce thereafter, leading to what is widely known as the "hungry season," a period of a few weeks or months before the harvest begins. Also, the price of crops such as maize are generally low immediately following the harvesting season and high during the hungry season, further restricting their availability to the more impoverished. In Ghana, the average monthly retail price of maize from 1991 to 1995 was significantly higher from April to July (the hungry season) than in the balance of the year. By contrast, the retail price of gari was stable throughout the...