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Focus on Cassava: An
ancient crop for modern times
First in a series highlighting CGIAR mandate crops
Cassava
is a source of food for 600 million people across the developing
world. But production is threatened by pests, diseases and
infertile soils. CGIAR scientists are developing solutions across
Africa and Latin America to improve cassava varieties.
CGIAR's crop research portfolio is made up of over 20 food
crops grown and consumed by millions of poor farmers. One of these
crops is Cassava ( Manihot Esculenta) , a perennial woody
shrub whose leaves and roots provide more than half of food
calories for over 200 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A hardy plant, cassava withstands droughts, while providing
protein, minerals (iron and calcium) and vitamins (A and C).
Cassava originated in tropical America and is now grown in some of
the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.
Cassava is eaten boiled as mush, roasted, baked, or consumed as
a pudding or alcoholic beverage. In Nigeria, people eat
Eba, a dish where the cassava tubers are grated and fried
and then mixed with boiling water to form a thick paste. In Brazil,
farofa, a lightly roasted cassava flour is the standard
side dish for Feijoada, the famous black bean stew. In the
Philippines, bibinka a sweet cake made out of cassava,
milk coconut and sugar is very popular in the countryside. Also
known as yuca or mandioca, cassava is planted on
about 17 million hectares worldwide, with 50 percent of acreage in
Africa, 30 percent in Asia, and 20 percent in Latin America.
Improving the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of
cassava farming is a major focus of CGIAR research. CGIAR
researchers at CIAT and IITA are developing new, higher-yielding,
disease and drought-resistant varieties that provide more food and
increase incomes of poor farmers. In addition, the CGIAR Challenge
Program Harvest Plus works with partners to identify cassava
varieties with a higher concentrations of provitamin A and other
nutrients.
Research Achievements and Impacts
- Long-term research by IITA scientists led to the development of
new, higher-yielding, disease and drought-resistant cassava
varieties that increased productivity by 40-50 percent
- Through the introduction of IITA's biological control
program to solve pest problems in cassava, there has been a 95%
reduction in cassava mealybug damage and a 50% reduction in damage
caused by the cassava green mite
- IITA and partners have developed a cassava variety resistant to
the cassava mosaic disease, a virus that attacks the leaves
producing fewer storage roots
- IITA scientists have developed effective and simple tools that
reduce cassava's processing time and labor by more than 50
percent
- IITA has trained more than 9000 researchers and technicians in
Africa in processing and utilization of high quality cassava
flour
- From 1996 to 1998, over 458,000 recombinant seeds were produced
by CIAT's breeders, of which 253,000 were distributed to
national programs in Asia, Latin America and to IITA
- CIAT maintains in trust for FAO a collection of more than 6,000
cassava accessions
- In 1995, Hans Herren who was then at IITA received the World
Food Prize for developing biological control methods for
eliminating the cassava mealybug.
Related Links:
Cassava
Photo Gallery
CIAT
IITA
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