Improved cassava processing for resource poor households for income generation and to ensure safety

 

Partners:

Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre (TFNC), Tanzania
Naliendele Agricultural Research Institute, Tanzania
Rural Integrated Project Support (RIPS), Tanzania.
Lake Zone Agricultural Research Institute, Mwanza, Tanzania.
IITA Tanzania, c/o Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute, Tanzania
Food Research Institute, Accra, Ghana

Challenge:

This portfolio of outputs started with strategic research in the late 1980s and was continued through to more adaptive research up to 2004.

Cassava is an important food security and income generation crop for resource poor households in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa.  The cyanogen content of cassava roots is a drawback, but research has shown that this can be over-come by the use of appropriate low cost processing methods.  An important concern for resource poor households is the need to generate income from marketing of cassava and its products.

Achievements:

This portfolio of projects has developed and tested low-cost processing technologies to produce high quality products to be marketed.  Although knowledge of safe processing methods is important, it is the linkage to market that is a more significant factor in adoption. 

 

Specific outputs from this portfolio of projects include:

• Identification of processing techniques that produce safe cassava products
• A distance learning guide for safe cassava processing
• Low cost systems for the value-added processing of high quality cassava flour (HQCF) and chips for a range of market outlets including supermarkets and animal feed.
• Specific pieces of locally fabricated processing equipment that can be purchased/fabricated at low cost to reduce drudgery in cassava processing.
• A market chain-based approach to cassava sector development
• (from related projects) motorised processing equipment.
• Approaches to involvement of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs)  in linking cassava processors to markets
• How to take a coalition-based livelihoods approach to develop markets for dried cassava flour and chips.
• Approaches to provision of credit for cassava processing.

Cassava is widely grown in many of the DFID PSA Countries in Africa and Asia.  These technologies can be promoted through a partnership approach in selected countries.   The partners should be selected from throughout the cassava processing value chain from farmer to consumer.