Importance of cassava
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Importance of cassava
Cassava has a reputation as a poor person’s crop, a crop of last resort. It is produced mostly by smallholders on marginal and sub-marginal lands in the humid and semi-humid tropics.
In Africa, an estimated 70 million people are dependent on cassava as a primary source of food, contributing over 500 kcal per day per person. In the 15 countries targeted in central, eastern and southern Africa, over 4 million people live in areas of high cassava production. Often these are among the most remote and poorest areas.
However, when compared to other cassava producing regions such as West Africa or Latin America, yields in central, eastern and southern Africa tend to be lower. Of the countries in the region producing over 500,000 tonnes per year, Central African Republic (3.0 T/hectare), Zambia (5.4 T/hectare), Rwanda (6.5 T/hectare), Mozambique (7.4 T/hectare) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (8.1 T/hectare) stand out as below the regional average of 8.8 tonnes/hectare.
Also, the full range of potential uses of cassava is under-exploited in central, eastern and southern regions of Africa. In some countries (notably Malawi and Zambia) there are programmes to promote further development of the cassava production sector, as an alternative to maize in increasingly drought-prone conditions, with investments in post harvest treatment facilities, and marketing, but these are in their initial stages (cite projects from IFAD and FAO TCP).
By increasing the productivity and production of the crop and controlling the diseases that affect it, cassava has the potential to help protect the food and income security of farming households in central, eastern and southern Africa.
Cassava and vulnerability
Cassava can play an important role in ensuring the food security of vulnerable groups. It is tolerant to drought and can generate acceptable yields even on depleted and marginal lands. In the event of civil strife, cassava can remain in the soil and untended, and normally be harvested later without major qualitative deterioration. Cassava is not usually easy to loot or steal in large quantities because of the labour for harvesting and the need to carry heavy roots from the field coupled with the processing requirements, and so will continue to be available even after temporary displacement of the household. Also, the crop does not require the use of expensive inputs such as fertiliser or purchased seed (it is vegetatively propagated, usually by the farmer taking their own cuttings)
In this situation, vulnerable people who use cassava as a major crop can be helped to recover from displacement and/or shocks in a sustainable manner only if they can access good quality and disease-free planting material. This requires solid services for breeding and releasing new varieties, capable arrangements for clean stem multiplication and the capacity for local disease control under an improved field production system.
