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Cassava: turning a subsistence crop into a cash crop in Western and Central Africa

Cassava is one of the world’s most important food crops. Throughout the tropics, its roots and leaves provide essential calories – and income. Some 600 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America depend on cassava – also known as yuca and manioc – for their survival. A number of IFAD-supported projects in Western and Central Africa have helped farmers improve yields. However, simply boosting production can lead to a glut of cassava on the market. This can depress prices and discourage farmers from investing in and cultivating this fundamental crop. IFAD is focusing on a region-wide effort to address processing and marketing challenger in its cassava-related projects.

Increasing and diversifying production

	Suzanne Nke (centre) at an exhibition of her association’s cassava products in Cameroon

In Western and Central Africa, cassava is the main staple food. Its leaves are eaten as a vegetable, its starchy root can be eaten raw or cooked, or processed into flour and other derivatives: gari, fufu, miondo and mintoubma, to name a few. Despite its dietary importance, cassava was rarely produced in the region on a large enough scale to make it valuable as a cash crop.

IFAD started supporting the cassava industry in the 1980s through projects that concentrated on increasing production. During the second half of the 1990s, the focus of cassava projects was enlarged to include marketing and processing. Roots and tubers projects are currently ongoing in Cameroon and Ghana, while projects with a component focusing on cassava are being implemented in Benin and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and have been proposed for Gabon and Sierra Leone.

In Ghana, IFAD has been one of the main institutions directly involved in cassava production, processing and marketing. At the production level, one of the most innovative features of the IFAD-supported national programme has been its focus on testing and distributing new varieties of cassava.

Through the programme, about 760,000 farmers have planted new varieties, and many have participated in the 35 farmer field schools that the programme set up across the country. These schools teach groups of farmers, most of whom are women, how to plant the new varieties. Participants then commit to passing on their knowledge to other farmers in the community.

	Workers mill cassava in Wenchi, Ghana

The programme has also helped participants diversify their income base to include cassava products. Cassava can be processed into high-quality flour and marketed as a substitute for wheat in bread, snacks and biscuits. The programme has trained hundreds of cassava processors, including pastry makers and bakers from 67 districts, on the different uses of high-quality cassava flour. Eight cassava recipes have been developed, with accompanying studies to test consumer response.

For the processing of cassava, 40 demonstration centres are being set up, and new stoves and other equipment have been introduced to produce cassava products more efficiently and more hygienically.

In Cameroon, about 730 farmers have attended the farmer field schools set up in 2006 and 2007. “We are working on the calculation that each trained farmer will in turn train 10 other farmers,” says André Mbairanodji of the Cameroon programme staff.

Suzanne Nke was one of the first to benefit from training. She is now the president of the Roots and Tubers Basin Women’s Association of Okola, a small town made up of seven villages in Cameroon’s Centre province. Currently, each of the seven village coordination committees of which the women of her association are members has 10 hectares of cassava farm. “We started by multiplying the cassava cuttings and now our plan is to increase the number of farms,” Suzanne explains. Their goal is to have 100 hectares of cassava farms for each committee. They also hope to buy equipment to process the cassava at a semi-industrial level.

Thanks to her cassava activities, Suzanne Nke says she is well respected within the community. “People from other areas interested in cassava cultivation come to me for advice on how to acquire and plant new high-yield varieties,” she says. She is also often invited to take part in policy meetings on cassava production, processing and marketing.

Supply and demand: a delicate balance

	Woman sells cassava flour at roadside market in Nigeria

Today, throughout the programme areas, cassava has moved from a food crop to a cash crop produced on an industrial scale and even exported. The introduction of new high-yield cassava varieties and improved farming techniques has led to a boom in production. But success often brings new challenges.

Akwasi Adjei Adjekum, national coordinator for the Ghana programme, explains: “There was an increase in production, but the money in the farmer’s pocket remained too little.” Rising cassava production had prompted many people to buy processing equipment. But by the time they had purchased the equipment, there was too little cassava on the market to process, because farmers had stopped producing it, discouraged by the low prices that had come with increased supply.

“We also realized that most of those who purchased processing equipment did not buy high-performing equipment,” Adjekum says. As a result, IFAD is now concentrating on the entire cassava chain – production, processing and marketing – in order to avoid a situation in which there are processors and no cassava, or vice versa. The organization has helped link 60 farmer groups to processors within their communities, and trained 167 processing groups in product utilization, business development and marketing skills.  IFAD has also helped provide high-performing processing equipment and is training local equipment manufacturers to make, sell and repair the equipment for local processors at a lower cost.

During a recent field mission in Ghana, IFAD staff discovered that the Ayenso Company, a starch factory, was having difficulty purchasing and processing enough fresh cassava. Not only were local farmers not producing enough, but poor roads and transport were delaying collection. Ayenso proposed that local farmers join forces to form ‘outgrower schemes’ to help deliver larger quantities of cassava more efficiently. The programme is now working with farmers to analyse the factory’s proposal and identify ways to improve the supply chain to everyone’s benefit.

The animal feed market is a promising sector for cassava producers. Large feed millers in Ghana and Nigeria prefer maize as livestock feed. But cassava could serve as an attractive alternative, especially during periods of high prices for other feeds. In Nigeria, the poultry industry is an attractive potential market for cassava producers. It accounts for about 80 per cent of the country’s consumption of animal feed and is protected against foreign imports of poultry products and maize. But before small farmers can take advantage of such new market opportunities, they need to learn the new production techniques for animal feed. IFAD is preparing a pilot project in Nigeria to help farmers learn about feed quality requirements and the accompanying technology and costs.

Building on experience

	Women peeling cassava at roadside market in Nigeria

IFAD’s experience has shown that one of the major obstacles to developing the cassava sector can be the lack of appropriate marketing strategies. In response, the newly designed, second-phase roots and tubers projects in Western and Central Africa have a much broader focus on market development and collaboration with the private sector. For example, the IFAD-supported programme in Cameroon is capitalizing on lessons learned in previous projects in the region and is emphasizing marketing and strategic alliances with the private sector. The programme is working with 120,000 roots and tubers small farmers to help them forge new links with the processing industry. One of the main components will enable small farmers and processors – 90 per cent of whom are women – to organize better at village and regional levels to meet consumer demand.

A regional perspective

	Behind Ama Buo's restaurant in Ejura, Ghana, workers pound cassava to make fou fou, which is often eaten with meat or sauce

Using a contribution by the Government of Italy, in 2007 IFAD launched a regional programme in response to a call from African leaders through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The three-year Regional Cassava Processing and Marketing Initiative (RCPMI) is supporting the individual roots and tubers programmes in Benin, Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria. It pursues selected market opportunities for cassava and its derivatives (especially food and animal feed); increases integration of the various operators in the diverse cassava derivatives chains (including farmers, processors and traders); facilitates the introduction and exchange of new technologies and good practices; promotes the exchange of knowledge among IFAD and non-IFAD cassava initiatives; and supports policy dialogue at national and regional levels in order to enhance the organization and performance of the cassava industry. In all its efforts, the initiative is working through FIDAfrique, the regional network of IFAD’s Western and Central Africa Division.

At RCPMI’s first meeting in November 2007 in Cameroon, roots and tubers programme coordinators, producers and other participants identified the main issues to be tackled to establish and strengthen a sustainable cassava chain in the region. These included formation of a regional cassava network, harmonization of norms and standards, and creation of a regional system for market information.

Working with the four national programmes and drawing on their experience, the initiative is responding to NEPAD’s call to give priority to cassava in regional and agricultural development strategies – and to enable small farmers to benefit from cassava’s growing importance as a cash crop.

Source: IFAD