Experts at the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) are leading a major new project that will deliver knowledge to support the development of markets for cassava products in sub-Saharan Africa. The Cassava Growth Markets Project (CassavaGMarkets) project aims to address some of the key researchable issues that will allow smallholder cassava farmers and processors to improve their incomes from sales of processed cassava products.
The project complements the NRI-led Cassava: Adding Value for Africa Project (C:AVA) supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. C:AVA, working with partners in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi, is building on existing knowledge and now new knowledge from 'CassavaGMarkets', to benefit more than 90,000 households by developing market chains for high quality cassava flour.
The €3.2m (£2.54m) 'CassavaGMarkets' project, mainly funded by the European Union Food Security Thematic Programme (FSTP), was launched at NRI, University of Greenwich, in July. Research organisations from Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, India and the UK came together to plan the organisation of the work.
Focusing on improvements to high quality cassava flour, and related products, 'CassavaGMarkets' will enable smallholder farmers to benefit from improved markets for their produce in a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way.
To achieve its objective, the project will be assessing the impacts of climate change on cassava value chains, as well as increasing our knowledge on cassava brown streak disease, which leads to large losses in the productivity of affected communities, and researching improvements to processing techniques that are more environmentally friendly and that will improve profitability.
To support this, the project will develop appropriate safety and quality management systems and investigate new market opportunities to sustain market growth. The project team will also investigate and make recommendations regarding how to ensure that both gender and livelihood impacts can be optimised from such interventions.
The CassavaGMarkets project is an important addition to NRI's portfolio of collaborative projects on post-harvest aspects of root and tuber crops that also includes the European Union Framework 7 "Gratitude" (Gains from Losses of Root and Tuber Crops) project that addresses issues of post-harvest losses in cassava and yam, and the EU/ACP Tropical Root and Tuber Crops Project, which supports the capacity development of early career root and tuber crop scientists in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific. This suite of projects will complement each other to help millions of people in some of the poorest regions of the world.
For more information about NRI's postharvest work on root and tuber crops, please contact either Professor Keith Tomlins or Professor Andrew Westby. Website for 'CassavaGMarkets' project will soon be live at: cassavagmarkets.nri.org