Cassava Power Unleashed

In 2008, the world was rocked by a global food price crisis which hit sub-Saharan Africa particularly hard.
“This is not just about meals forgone today, or about increasing social unrest, it is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth,” said Robert Zoellick, the World Bank President. ”Without urgent action to resolve the crisis, the fight against poverty could be set back by seven years.”

Fast-forward three years, and Nigerian farmers in the southern state of Oyo have more than doubled their cassava yields, thanks to the ‘Unleashing the Power of Cassava in Africa’ (UPoCA) project. This two-year initiative implemented by the the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) came about as a direct response to the 2008 food crisis.

“With local varieties, I used to harvest 10 tons per hectare, but now it is more than 20 tons per hectare,” said Bashir Adesiyan, Chairman of the local chapter of the Nigerian Cassava Growers Association in the state’s Ido community. “During the harvest period, other farmers accused me of applying ‘juju’ —supernatural or magical powers— on the farm, but I told them it was the improved cassava stems and training I got from IITA that has made my farm better.”

Farmers in other communities and in other states in the country echoed Adesiyan’s claims, saying that the project boosted their production of cassava through the availability of improved cassava stems, which made food more secure and generated wealth.

Similar reports have emerged from the six other countries where the UPoCA project was implemented: DR Congo, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

The project introduced and facilitated the spread of free improved cassava varieties by establishing community-based stem multiplication sites across the seven countries. These improved varieties were then planted on smallholder farms, like that of Bashir Adesiyan. To help increase cassava yields, the farmers also learned modern production techniques under the project.

Training of Trainers

To build a critical mass of skilled people in the countries, UPoCA trained 1,043 men and 884 women farmers using the “Training of Trainers” approach. The trained participants produced a wide variety of cassava products such as odorless fufu flour, high quality cassava flour (HQCF), soya-fortified gari, starch, tapioca granules, HQCF/wheat flour composite bread, and a number of different cassava snacks. Most of these products were either being crudely prepared by the farmers, or were introduced by the project.

At the end of a “Training of Trainers” session in Sierra Leone on ‘Cassava Processing, Product Development and Utilization’, Mrs. Agnes Minah, one of the participants, said “I benefited most from the hands-on training approach due to three key features: seeing/observing, reading and practicing. With my ‘finger prints’ all over the products I produced, it will be difficult for me to forget what I have learnt, especially the skills to make high quality cassava flour and fufu flour. I never knew cassava had so many uses but now I clearly understand why IITA chose the project title Unleashing the Power of Cassava.”

Further reading: IITA Annual Report (page 46)

Photo courtesy: IITA