?West Africans would be lost withoutcassava!? exclaims Kolawole Adebayo, who?s a senior lecturer in agriculture andrural development at the University of Agriculture at Abeokuta, the capital ofOgun State in southwestern Nigeria.
Thecrop is grown in 21 of the country?s 36 states and throughout West Africa?stropical belt and is the region?s staple food. Nigeria alone produces more than40 million metric tons of cassava annually, ensuring that it?s the world?sleading provider of cassava.
Adebayo says over 90percent of Nigeria?s cassava output is processed and eaten locally.
?The consumed part of cassava is theroot, which is a starchy root; it looks like potato,? he explains. ?The root isvery high in carbohydrates ? in fact it?s more than 95 percent carbohydrate.?
Because of this starchiness, cassava ? after a long periodof boiling to soften it ? is used to make a variety of extremely filling meals.These include a mash known as garri, and a thick porridge called fufu.The concoctions are mostly eaten as accompaniments to meat or soup dishes.
Adebayo explains, ?In the poor areas of West Africa,there?s often very little meat available, because it?s expensive. The cassavaporridge is used to make the meal last longer and to make sure that bellies arefilled.?
Cassava is sometimes also fried up into chips, and groundinto flour.
?This crop keeps West Africa alive,? says Adebayo.
There are, however, significantdrawbacks to Nigeria?s massive cassava output.
?BecauseNigeria is the largest producer and consumer of cassava in the world, there?s alot of waste in the form of cassava peels that [are] generated,? Adebayo says.?For instance, if you uproot one ton of cassava root, the amount of cassavapeel and chaff that?s going to be thrown away as waste will be about 30 percentof that. That?s about 300 kilograms for each ton of cassava root at the stagefor processing. It leads to a big, big mess.?
InWest Africa, he adds, cassava waste has always been considered an ?inconvenience,? rather thana potential resource.
?Inmany centers where cassava processing is done, this waste is essentially throwninto a dump. Most of the time, if the dump gets large enough, they set fire(to) it and that emits carbon dioxide and other forms of pollution in theatmosphere.?
Theagriculturalist recalls the day when, ?out of the blue,? he was struck with a?wonderful idea? for a solution to the various disadvantages associated withcassava production.
?Iwas watching goats at a dump. They were eating the cassava peels that had driedin the sun. They were eating in a way that showed they loved the cassavawaste,? Adebayo tells VOA. ?And then suddenly I thought, wait aminute: suppose we use the cassava formally as animal feed! The idea (behind) this project is, supposing we now consciously take thecassava peel and chaff, dry it, and package it in such a way that we can thensell to the owners of the goats for feeding their goats.?
He then began thinking about ways inwhich the cassava waste could be dried.
?I came up with the simplest and cheapest method: Beingin the tropics, what comes to mind readily is the sun, to use the light andwarmth of the sun to dry the cassava.?
Adebayo?s now encouraging the farmers to build ?dryingplatforms made of concrete? on their lands.
?These can be built (cheaply) by local masons. Thecassava peels can then be spread on these to dry out in the sun,? he adds.
Adebayo explains that once it?s dry, the cassava chaffcan be stored for a ?long period of time, up to six months. It can then be soldin the local markets to goat keepers? who he plans to educate about thebenefits of feeding the cassava peels to their goats ?as a supplement.?
He?s convinced that both the goat keepers and the cassavafarmers of Ogun State will embrace his idea ?wholeheartedly,? and the WorldBank agrees.
?This is an excellent project, with wonderful potential;it is simple and appears feasible,? says Juergen Voegele, head of agricultureat the organization. ?We really think it has growth potential, with a chance ofspreading throughout the region.?
Adebayo adds, ?If within the life of this project, whichis two years, cassava processors and goat keepers start getting used to dryingthe cassava and its value as a tradable commodity and using it to feed theiranimals, there will be spontaneous diffusion of these concepts amongneighboring communities. The success will spread by word of mouth.?