Gender and Cropping: Yam in Sub-Saharan Africa

Yam is a major staple in West and Central Africa and an important supplementary food in East Africa. Three varieties of yam are grown in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), though only two are indigenous to the region. White yam (D. rotundata) and yellow yam (D. cayenensis) are native to West Africa, and the production area stretches from central Cote d‘Ivoire to Cameroon. East African production of water yam (D. alata) is historically low compared with West African white and yellow yam production. SSA yam production increased steadily until the mid 1960s when farmers began replacing yam with the hardier and more easily grown cassava, despite cassava being less nutritious.1 This decline in yam production continued until the mid-1980s, but production has increased steadily since. In the last decade, production in SSA increased from 34 million tons to recent estimates of over 50 million tons.2 This increase has been achieved mainly through the use of traditional indigenous varieties and can be partly explained by the rapid expansion of yam fields into marginal lands and in nontraditional yam growing areas.3