Africa Achieves A Breakthrough In Cassava Production

[Stephen B. Kennedy-IV]

02 Nov 96

Africa Achieves A Breakthrough In Cassava Production

From Paul Ejime ; PANA Staff Correspondent

LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - Food shortages in sub-Sahara Africa make
regular and often dramatic world headlines but, perhaps, the
under-reported good news is that the yields of new varieties of
cassava, one of the region's major staples, have risen significantly
in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.

This has been achieved, in spite of a steep rise in population,
through intensified farming methods, and as a result of improved
market conditions.

For the second consecutive year, Nigeria led the rest of the world
in cassava production in 1995, according to latest reports by the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The organisation's report on world food output said Nigeria produced
some 31 million tonnes, or 20 percent, of total world cassava output
in 1995. The world's total production of the staple was put at 161
million tonnes, some two millions tonnes more than in 1994.

Africa's total production was 82 million tonnes, with Nigeria
accounting for 38 percent.

Apart from relatively favourable weather conditions and government
policies, the research efforts of the International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, western Nigeria, have been
instrumental to the country's breakthrough in cassava production.>
Scientists from the 30-year-old institute estimate that the Nigerian
experience could be replicated in all cassava-growing areas of
sub-Sahara Africa, "provided that conditions are as favourable as
those in Nigeria, where farming and market opportunities have
enabled farmers to adopt the improved technologies."

This optimism is based on the institute's six-year painstaking
survey of cassava production in 15 countries across sub-Sahara
Africa.

The institute's Collaborative Study of Cassava in Africa, or COSCA,
was first organised in 1988 with funding from the Rockefeller
Foundation of the United States.

For the project implementation, the institute collaborates with the
Natural Resources Institute of the United Kingdom and the national
programmes of each survey country.

According to the latest annual report by the Institute at Ibadan,
the secret of the Nigerian practice "is that cassava is cultivated
as a commercial crop, no longer just as a subsistence crop."

Consequently, it says, some "45 percent...of a village's harvest is
sold, not consumed by growers."

The farmers buy fertiliser and hire labour to help them produce
cassava, much as they do for other field crops.

The extent of mechanisation in transporting the harvest and
processing is said to be high for cassava as for other crops.

All factors considered, the Ibadan institute postulates that
"farmers with better access to markets tend to produce better
yields."

The formula of the collaborative study tends to defy the age-long
Malthusian economic theory on the disparity between population
explosion and growth in food production.

According to the Ibadan institute, while population density may
differ from one place to another, cassava yield across sub-Sahara
Africa "has stayed at a consistent average level."

The collaborate study estimates the general average yield to be 11.9
metric tonnes of fresh (cassava) roots per cultivated hectare.

One reason for this is that increases in population density "force
farmers to make changes in their production system." This involves
adopting new farming practices to enlarge cassava harvest from a
given land area, a replacement of traditional practices with new
ways and intensified use of modernised processes.

For instance, under pressure to feed more mouths with each harvest,
Nigerian farmers have curtailed their practice of fallow fields as a
measure to restore land fertility.

Farmers have adopted other beneficial practices, such as "grazing of
livestock and use of the organic manure supply to fertilise their
cassava fields," the Ibadan institute says.

With these improved farming practices and use of high-yielding
varieties, scientists who conducted the collaborative study estimate
that Nigeria, with a population of some 100 million, "can feed an
additional 27 million people."

The improved root, the scientists say, "attains its peak weight at
around 15 months, after planting, while the traditional type can
take up to 24 months.

The improved varieties became available in Nigeria from the
mid-1970s. Since then, the Ibadan institute has continued to endow
the staple with other desired features, making new genotypes
available to national programmes throughout sub-Sahara Africa from
which selections are made of varieties suitable for local growing
environments.

From 1980 to 1992, scientists conducted three different surveys of
cassava production in Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania,
Uganda and Zaire which, among them, produce about 75 percent of the
continent's total.

The study was expanded in 1991 to include Burundi, Cameroon, Congo,
Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Zambia--with emphasis on
climate, population and market system.

The collaborative survey team leader, Felix Nweke of Nigeria, says
"all members of the COSCA study team must feel gratified that
cassava scientists in Africa are now aware of the aspirations and
problems of cassava producers, processors, and consumers, and the
scientists are seriously addressing those issues."

He is optimistic that the "potential of the crop for improving the
welfare of Africa's peoples will be realised."

The role of cassava as the dominant starchy staple in the diet of
Africans cannot be overemphasised, against the background of gloomy
figures by the United Nations Industrial Organisation, which
estimates that some 220 million Africans currently suffer hunger and
malnutrition. This is almost half of the continent's estimated 450
million population.

African scientists still remain highly optimistic about reversing
the dangerous trend with the breakthrough in cassava production. The
range of the products is wider in West than East Africa. According
to the collaborative study, about 75 percent of total cassava
produced in Africa ares processed into various food products. These
include pastes, granules, chips/flour, starches and beverages, while
the remainder is used in fresh form.

So, scientists consider cassava a "great friend" of Africa because
of its adaptability to the continent's climatic and soil conditions.

[Stephen B. Kennedy-IV]

04 Nov 96 - Feature: Africa-Cassava