Uncategorized

Cassava (manihot exculentus) is a root crop that has bearing upon the lives of millionsin the developing countries. Cassava is the staple food of about 500 million peopleglobally. It is a crop, which tolerates drought and low fertility and is primarily grown bysmall-scale farmers in areas with marginal soils or unfavorable climates. It is estimatedthat cassava tubers yields more calories per unit area than any other crop in the world,except perhaps sugar cane. The leaves of the plant provide vitamins and proteins wheneaten as vegetables. This promising tropical plant originated in Central America andwas brought to West Africa in the sixteenth century. Cassava cultivation.Cassava is vegetatively propagated; therefore, the stems of the plant are used ascuttings. The time taken to mature i.e. the period of growth from planting toharvest varies between 12-18 months.Cassava grows best on light sandy loams or on loamy sands which are moist, fertileand deep, but it also does well on soils ranging in texture from the sands to the claysand on soils of relatively low fertility. In practice, it is grown on a wide range of soils,provided the soil texture is friable enough to allow the development of the tubersIn general, the crop requires a warm humid climate. Temperature is important, as allgrowth stops at about 10ºC. Typically’ the crop is grown in areas that are frost free theyear round. The highest root production can be expected in the tropical lowlands, below150 m altitude, where temperatures average 25-27°C, but some varieties grow ataltitudes of up to 1 500 m.The plant produces best when rainfall is fairly abundant, but it can be grown whereannual rainfall is as low as 500 mm or where it is as high as 5 000 mm. The plant canstand prolonged periods of drought in which most other food crops would perish. Thismakes it valuable in regions where annual rainfall is low or where seasonal distributionis irregular.Cuttings are planted by hand or by planting machines.The cuttings are planted on flatsoil or on ridges.Cassava is usually planted at the beginning of the rainy seasonExperience has shown that, from the standpoint of starch production’ the developmentof the cassava plant is most profitable when planting takes place at the beginning of ahumid period.

Cassava flour is mainly used in the baking industry for baking, manufacturing ofnoodles and production of ethanol.There are so many flour mills in the country who by next year 2005 will besearching for cassava flour in order to comply with the mandatory 10% cassavacontent of baking flour as legislated by the Federal Government. It is estimated that 40% of the over 30 million tonnes of cassava produced inNigeria annually is lost due to lack of processing capacity and marketoutlets. Recent IITA report suggest that farmers are becoming unwilling toembrace the cultivation of high yield cassava species because of lack ofmarket outlets. It is being suggested that it will require an installed processingcapacity of about 12 million metric tonnes of cassava tuber processing topellets or flour (yield of about 4 million tonnes of pellets or flour) to reducethe loss to the barest minimum.There is a large market for good quality cassava starch/flour in Europe due toincreasing interest in the sterling qualities of cassava starch/flour whichincludes low gelatilization temperature, clarity and resistance to degradation.The Nigerian per capita imports of wheat is put at 8.25kg/cap/yr at an averagewheat import price of $414.14/mt for a national consuming population of 100million. Nigeria will be consuming 825.000 MTS of wheat valued at over N46Billion/yr. With the current high cost of wheat bread and flour in the face ofdiminishing real per capita income, massive currency devaluation (currently $1 –N135 ) makes partial wheat import substitution with high quality unfermentedcassava flour produced locally from micro, small, medium to large scale flourmills imperative and very timely.