The dearth of fertile ‘virgin’ land and inaccessibility to standard chemical fertilizers, coupled with low tuber yields has made cassava cultivation unprofitable in parts of traditional cassava zone of West Africa. Field experiments were conducted at Ajibode and Alabata villages located in Ibadan (derived savanna zone), Nigeria to evaluate cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) root yield response ...

Routine production of large numbers of transgenic plants is required to fully exploit advances in cassava biotechnology and support development of improved germplasm for deployment to farmers. This article describes an improved, high-efficiency transformation protocol for recalcitrant cassava cultivar TME14 preferred in Africa. Factors that favor production of friable embryogenic calli (FEC) we...

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz.) is the major source of calories for subsistence farmers in subSaharan Africa. Cassava, however, contains potentially toxic levels of the cyanogenic glucoside, linamarin. The cyanogen content of cassava foods can be reduced to safe levels by maceration, soaking, rinsing and baking; however, short-cut processing techniques can yield toxic food products. Our obj...

A manually operated machine for chipping cassava was evaluated. Six farmers took part in the study, with physiological, postural, and subjective measurements being taken. Using the machine resulted in drudgery and postural discomfort. Following an iterative design process and using appropriate anthropometric measurements, an improved, adjustable prototype was developed. This was tested with the...

Executive Summary 1. Maize has been the recognised staple food for most Zambians in rural and urban areas. Food security policies and strategies in Zambia have therefore, remained highly biased towards maize. The danger of over-depending on maize is that its production is expensive and reliance on it alone narrows the food base, and also makes the national food security system vulnerable to dro...

In Vietnam, cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is the second most important food crop after rice in terms of total production; annual root production is about 2 million tonnes, the majority of which is used for animal feeding. Cassava is also an important source of income for poor farmers. Making silage is an appropriate method to preserve cassava roots to be used for pig feeding and is applica...

Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) threatens food and economic security for smallholder farmers throughout East and Central Africa, and poses a threat to cassava production in West Africa. CBSD is caused by two whitefly-transmitted virus species: Cassava brown streak virus (CBSV) and Ugandan cassava brown streak virus (UCBSV) (Genus: Ipomovirus, Family Potyviridae). Although varying levels of ...

Rising sea levels are threatening agricultural production in coastal regions due to inundation and contamination of groundwater. The development of more salt-tolerant crops is essential. Cassava is an important staple, particularly among poor subsistence farmers. Its tolerance to drought and elevated temperatures make it highly suitable for meeting global food demands in the face of climate cha...

Cassava is planted each year in about 120,000 hectares of agricultural land in the Philippines, producing about 1.8 million tonnes of cassava roots. Principal products of the processing industry are food, dried chips and starch. As a traded commodity, however, cassava contributes only about 2% to gross value-adding in agriculture. The following factors favor the expansion of the industry: a) tr...

Cassava root rots are important diseases in different agroecological zones of West Africa. The causing pathogens were collected from 101 farmers’ fields in forest mosaic savanna, southern guinea savanna, northern guinea savanna and sudan savanna of Benin were isolated, identified and analyzed for their virulence. A total of 51 isolates were found showing different disease reaction with 13.7% hi...