Post-harvest Management of Cassava for Industrial Utilization in India

The importance of cassava has been realized as a high energy human food, animal feed and as an industrial raw material for sweeteners, ethanol and various other chemicals. Its industrial potential, however, has still not been tapped to any great extent. Broadening of the post-harvest utilization of cassava remains rather difficult due to several factors. The development of costand energy-effective processing equipment was considered essential for cassava, which, like other root and tuber crops, is invariably associated with labor intensive farming and a low-cost produce. Simple and low-cost methods were developed for the storage of fresh cassava roots as well as packaging of important products of primary processing, such as cassava chips, flour and starch. Improved technology is also being developed for smalland medium-scale cassava starch extraction, a level of operation which is very common in India. In recent years the State Bank of India (SBI) and CTCRI have joined hands to significantly modernize and upgrade the entire cluster of cassava starch and sago industries in the Samalkot region of Andhra Pradesh state in India. This includes all aspects of the cassava starch/sago industry of the region, ensuring the availability of high quality raw materials, improved process efficiency, marketing and finance, which will benefit both the farming community as well as the industrialists. Increased utilization of cassava roots as food by the urban and affluent section of society can be achieved by processing the roots into various convenience and fast food products, such as semolina, porridge, wafers, crisps, ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat extruded products, etc., to suit the taste and need of urban populations. Diversification into the manufacture of value-added products, such as adhesives, high-fructose syrup, maltose, maltodextrins and biodegradable plastics is currently envisaged as one of the most dependable methods to make cassava commercially lucrative. INTRODUCTION Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a major source of carbohydrates in many developing countries. In India cassava is grown, by and large, for table purpose and is consumed as fresh human food after boiling, baking, steaming, roasting or frying. A relatively smaller fraction is used for animal feed, is processed into human food or is manufactured into various industrial products. It is a suitable crop for poor farmers since it can grow and yield under a wide range of soil, climate and environmental conditions in the tropics and subtropics. It ranks second among cultivated crops in terms of edible energy produced per unit area per unit time (138 MJ/ha/day), after sweet potato (194 MJ/ha/day). Because of the high photosynthetic efficiency and the subsequent synthesis of carbohydrates, cassava is rated as one of the most efficient sources of energy, besides its importance in meeting rural food security. It can also be processed into various food products to suit the taste and need of the urban population. Traditionally cassava has supplemented the rice diet of the poor as well as during periods of scarcity, thus averting famines. Gradually it has become a subsidiary food as an outcome of the green revolution that changed the consumption pattern of the people in the country. However, in order to maintain the balance between the supply of food and the ever increasing population, 1 Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI), Thiruvananthapuram 695017, Kerala, India.