Strategies for developing the cassava industry

The centralization of the cassava industry in tropical (and especially African) countries should be considered as a very important part of general strategy directed to the provision of the population with nutritionally balanced cassava foods. The Irish model of the development of dairy industry during the last 45 years had been a classical example of small involved groups in dairy farming getting together to pool their resources and family requirements to make a common objective succeed. This model based on a co-operative concept could be recommended for the cassava producing areas in order to improve this industry. The identification of the research areas required to improve the quality of the cassava fermented food products is another important part of the cassava strategy. These areas should include (i) fundamental studies of the various bacterial groups involved in the fermentation process and identification of the key groups involved at the various stages of fermentation (ii) strain screening programmes of these identified bacteria to select those which are most important to the fermentation of cassava (iii) studies to determine the appropriate methods for the propagation and the storage of these strains and (iv) systems to distribute these strains to the industries/small farmers/local co-operatives in cassava processing. Other technological and research aspects of improvement of the traditional fermentation practice of cassava are discussed in the paper. (author)