The Cassava Transformation: Africa's Best-Kept Secret

Chapter 11. Consumption

CHAPTER 11 Consumption Introduction Cassava is a major source of calories for roughly two out of every five Africans.! However, many international agencies and bilateral donors are hesitant to extend loans and grants to African nations to help them increase the production of root crops such as cassava because of the long held wrong belief that cassava is an "inferior good," that is, that the per capita consumption of cassava declines as per capita income increases. For example, soon after International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was established in 1975, it reported that "since these root crops require much larger bulk to provide calories than do cereals, and are low in protein, demand may shift towards cereals as has occurred in other countries" (International Food Policy Research Institute 1976, 35). Today, the low status accorded cassava by the international organizations and donor agencies flows from two misleading myths: that cassava is an inferior food that is produced by and for rural households and that because of its low protein content cassava is a nutritionally inferior food crop. However, the IFPRI recently concluded that root crops such as cassava are important for smallholders in the marginal areas of Africa, Asia, and 153 The Cassava Transformation South America and that special steps should be taken to boost cassava production, especially in Africa (Pinstrup-Anderson, Pandya-Lorch, and Rosegrant 1999). Yet much of the future growth of the cassava industry will depend on whether investments are going to be forthcoming to make cassava competitive with rice and wheat in urban centers. This chapter examines cassava consumption patterns over time and marshals evidence to show: (1) that cassava is a major source of calories for a large proportion of the population in Africa; (2) that from 1961 to 1998 total cassava consumption more than doubled in Africa, compared with only about a 20 percent increase in South America (FAOSTAT); (3) that cassava waste is high, especially because of inefficient processing methods, and (4) that the income elasticities of demand for cassava and cassava products such as gari are high among rural and urban households in Ghana and Nigeria and among rural households in Tanzania and Uganda. The chapter concludes that cassava and cassava products, such as gari, are an important food staple with favorable market prospects for low-, medium-, and high-income households in Africa. Cassava Consumption Pattarns Cassava production in Africa is used almost exclusively for consumption as food. In fact, 95 percent of the total cassava production, after accounting for waste, was used as food in Africa in the late 1990s.2 By contrast, during the same period, 55 percent of total cassava production in Asia and 40 percent of that in South America were used as food. In Africa, total cassava consumption has more than doubled in the last thirty years, from twenty-four million tons per year from 1961 to 1965 to fifty-eight million tons per year from 1994 to 1998, after accounting for waste (FAOSTAT). The large increase in the total cassava consumption in Africa is due to a significant increase in per capita consumption in countries such as Nigeria and Ghana where cassava is produced as a cash crop for urban consumption. For example, the FAO data show that in Ghana, from 1961 to 1998, per capita cassava consumption nearly doubled, from 130 kilograms per person per year from 1961 to 1965 to 256 kilograms 154 Consumption 100 +97 80 60 .. 40 '" ~ .. ~ .. a. 20 0 -20 - 40 Congo Cote Ghana d'ivoire Nigeria Tanzania Uganda Figure 11.1. Percentage Change in Per Capita Consumption of Cassava in the COSCA Countries from 1961 to 1998, Source: FAOSTAT. per person per year from 1994 to 1998. In Nigeria, the per capita consumption increased by 40 percent, from 88 kilograms per person per year from 1961 to 1965 to 120 kilograms per person per year from 1994 to 1998 (FAOSTAT). Yet the per capita cassava consumption in the same period stagnated in the Cote d'Ivoire and declined significantly in the Congo, Tanzania, and Uganda (fig. 11.1). The availability of cassava in a convenient food form, such as gari, played a major role in the increase in per capita cassava consumption in Nigeria and Ghana. Future increases in cassava consumption in other African countries will depend on how well cassava is prepared into food forms which make it an alternative to wheat, rice, maize, and sorghum for...