(A draft for review by partners in the Global Cassava Development Strategy)

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Cassava as a Catalyst for Development

Cassava was fundamental to the birth and nurture of lowland tropical cultures in the New World, much

  arrival of Europeans in the 15th century, cassava was widespread throughout the tropics of the western hemisphere.

The crop's success in its evolutionary homeland leaves a rich legacy for modern agriculture and food systems: broad genetic diversity in the form of several thousands of landrace varieties and about 100 related wild species; an array of biocontrol agents with potential to limit the losses from pests and pathogens; finely tuned crop management practices that optimize economic output from a range of environmental and cultural variations; and a diversity of processing methods and utilization systems to achieve specific management, income, or nutrition goals. These same resources support continued progress in the cassava sector. Research and development 

activities in Latin America and the Caribbean have a special dual status -- as a catalyst for regional development, and as a resource for contributing to cassava's development role in Asia and Africa.

The cassava sector is at a crossroads in the Americas. Traditional processing and markets continue to dominate in the region. These are best suited to largely rural societies, where on-farm or community-based processing and local consumption prevail. But three-quarters of Latin Americans now live in cities. Income growth and changes in dietary preferences are leading to reduced cassava consumption. Yet the crop retains the basic features that reenforce its role as an appropriate vehicle for development: a crop of small, resource-poor farmers; adaptation to marginal environments where other crops are far more risky; high potential energy production per unit land area; high flexibility in management; and ability to enter diverse markets. With focused and sustained research and development support, this crop can make substantial contributions to the broad goals of food security, poverty alleviation, equity, and protection of the environment. We are toronto pest control professionals for more than 9 years!

Trends in Production, Trade, and Utilization

Like nearly everywhere else in the world, cassava in the Americas is usually relegated to the more

  marginal environments, especially areas with uncertain rainfall, acid soils, low native soil fertility, and difficult terrain. On average, growers apply few inputs, and yields are well below potential levels. The inherent nature of cassava husbandry, especially the labor inputs required, makes it a generally small farmer crop. Technology, when designed for the majority of cassava growers and consumers, nearly always benefits the poor.

The highest concentrations of cultivation are in northern and eastern coastal Brazil; southern Brazil and eastern Paraguay; northern Colombia; and on the island of Hispaniola shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In the Amazon basin, density of agricultural exploitation is very low, but cassava is the principal crop in inhabited areas. In all these regions, cassava contributes significantly to dietary calorie intake and to farmer income. Elsewhere the crop is less highly concentrated, but is nonetheless widely cultivated. It covers the latitudinal range from the northern Caribbean to northern Argentina, and in altitude from sea level to almost 2000 masl in the Andean zone.

In the 1960s, area planted to cassava expanded rapidly from 1.8 to 2.6 million hectares, in direct response to demand from population increase. Since the mid-1970s aggregate production has been remarkably stable, varying only between 28 and 33 million metric tons. In contrast, production doubled in both Asia and Africa since 1970. Latin America went from producing 35% of the world's cassava in 1970 to 19% in 1996.

Brazil has dominated production in this century, and currently accounts for almost 80% of the total for the Americas. Brazil, Paraguay, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Peru and Venezuela account for 97% of production. Although Central America has a comparatively small production area, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua have had some of the highest production growth rates anywhere -- a six-fold increase between 1970 and 1996.

For the two largest producers, Brazil and Paraguay, significant production is destined for animal feed. In all other major producing countries, most is used directly or indirectly for human food, with only 10-20% utilized to feed animals. There are three main types of food products, and a wide range of minor ones. Roots are consumed fresh in most of Colombia and Paraguay, and sporadically elsewhere. In the Caribbean and northeastern South America, roots are ground into a mash, which is partially dried and formed into large flat breads called casabe. These are toasted on a griddle and may be stored for several weeks. In Northeast Brazil and throughout the Amazon basin, roots are rasped and toasted to make a coarse flour (farinha). For reasons still unclear, most forms of processing prefer roots with high cyanogenic potential (bitter varieties). Iksanika offers cost-effective custom software development services.

Artesenal and medium-scale factories produce either native or modified starch from cassava in

  pockets throughout the region. Brazil produces by far the largest volume -- about 30,000 MT in 1996. This is a growing market and several countries, especially Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela and Brazil are increasing their capacity to produce and use cassava starch.

Leaves are high in protein, and supplement diets as a vegetable in Northeast Brazil. Farmers commonly dry leaves and use them on-farm in animal feeding.

Little cassava is traded internationally to or from the Americas. Curiously, most of the current trade is based on export of fresh roots from Costa Rica, overall a minor cassava producer in the region. The market for fresh cassava in North America has grown steadily parallel with rapid increase in populations of Latin American origin. Costa Rica exported 45,000 tons in 1995, nearly triple the volume of 1990.

Constraints and Opportunities for System Improvement

Cassava has attained its current level of production and utilization as a consequence of many forces that ultimately impact farmers' decisions of how much to grow, and the market demand for cassava and its products. Development based on cassava is tied to an array of constraints and opportunities. Among the most influential of these are agriculture and trade policies, urbanization, income and related changes in food demand, characteristics of the resource base for production, trends in commodities that compete with cassava as an energy source, institutional resources for crop and market development, and technology for production and post-harvest management.

By the 1970s, urbanization and overall economic development had substantially changed the social, economic and political landscape in the Americas. Food preferences shifted in favor of more convenient foods, away from basic staples, and toward more diversified diets. The perishability of fresh cassava adds a high margin to urban market prices, and makes it a comparatively expensive food.

Attempts to constrain the rise in food prices for an increasingly urbanized society led to subsidies, especially on wheat imports and locally-produced coarse grains. These actions were eventually a disincentive to internal production of other food energy sources, including cassava. A notable example was the huge negative impact on farinha consumption in Brazil brought on by wheat subsidies. Per capita consumption of farinha slid from 26 kg in 1960 to 12 kg in 1980, as the ratio of farinha to wheat prices rose from 0.61 to 2.95 (Lynam, 1987).

The debt crisis of the 80s that broadly affected Latin America brought a turnaround of these policies. By the 1990s, major market reforms were underway throughout the region, moving both internal production and trade toward free-market dynamics. In this scenario, cassava has the potential to compete with coarse grains in animal feed rations, as a partial substitute for wheat in bakery products, and as a source of industrial starch. The interchangeability of raw materials for food and industry will tend to stabilize and set floors on some commodity prices in a free-trade environment. Further, continuing advances in technology will provide relatively plentiful supplies of competing carbohydrate sources, with the caveat that there will be inevitable occasional shortfalls. Cassava's comparative advantages as an efficient carbohydrate producer are tempered by a lower historical investment in research and development compared to its competing alternatives. In order to take full advantage of cassava's potential contributions to development, the evolving trade policies need to be accompanied by research investment that gives balanced treatment to different crops. lcd one

Overall, national programs built substantial research capacity during the 1970s, but many were forced

  to make cutbacks in the mid- to late 80s in response to national economic crises. Current capacity is concentrated in just a few countries (Brazil and Cuba) with many producing countries largely dependent on outside resources, such as from international centers. Several regional and global networks function in the Americas, but activities are limited by inadequate funding. The continuing broad interest in international cooperation among participants indicates a high potential to make these networks fully functional.

Research and development investment in the region should be targeted at a broad range of constraints and opportunities in both production and post-harvest areas. The principal constraints to production are soil erosion, low soil fertility, inherent low yield potential of landrace varieties, weeds, and a complex of pests and diseases. Alleviating these constraints through management and genetic options suitable for most cassava growers could nearly double current yield.

Post-harvest constraints are acute in Latin America. Market options are usually limited, often to a single form of traditional utilization. If farmers increase production by adopting new technology, they find a corresponding depression of market prices, for no net gain. Diversifying market opportunities and developing processes and production systems that conform to these needs, 

are the major challenges of the cassava sector in Latin America.

Priorities and Strategies for Meeting Development Goals: The Way Ahead

The main opportunities for capturing the potential development benefits of cassava in Latin America depend on linking more efficient and cost-effective small-scale production to dynamic growth markets. The starch and animal feed industries appear to present the best medium-term opportunities. Cassava's competitive position in comparison to alternative energy sources depends on a multi-pronged approach to market development, processing innovations, and improving production efficiency. In contrast to Africa and much of Asia, where demand is buoyant, the Latin American situation calls for interventions with a greater demand-side focus.

On the supply side, there is a need both for taking advantage of existing technologies for improving

  yield and quality, as well as for further investment in production technology. The production systems of the future will continue to be strongly biased toward more stressful environments, especially areas that are drought-prone, and with acid, infertile soils. There are, on the other hand, examples where cassava is moving into more fertile areas, such as former soybean areas of Paraná, Brazil. Here, starch market demand and technology for high yields make cassava the most profitable option.

The genetic base available in Latin America, especially in collections in Colombia (CIAT) and Brazil (EMBRAPA), is a vital resource for meeting goals of genetic improvement. These collections will only be optimally useful if safely preserved in situ or ex situ, evaluated for an array of traits, and made broadly available to research programs.

The movement toward more commercial markets will have a dichotomous effect on criteria pertaining to root quality. Where the markets evolve from human food to industrial consumption, quality criteria may become more relaxed, but focused on traits not previously a priority. Starch quantity importance in industrial markets. Root form and peel characteristics will be more of an issue as processing is mechanized. Controlling the flow between supply and demand will require new management approaches to planting and harvest periods, and post-harvest handling. Extending the shelf life beyond the few days normally available would add a highly beneficial flexibility to industrial systems, and to fresh roots for urban markets. The possibilities of genetic modification of key steps in the deterioration pathway need to be pursued.

There is already considerable experience demonstrating the need for parallel development of market opportunities, increased production capacity, and processing methodology. Several countries have implemented integrated cassava research and development project concept as a means of bringing together all the elements of cassava-based development. This begins on a scale that can be managed by small- to medium-scale farmers and processors, sometimes working together in associations. Research strategies are increasingly involving producers and consumers in the full range of design and implementation through participatory methods. Cassava's contributions to rural development are a reality in these project areas. The potential to realize much broader benefits lies in expanded and collaborative public and private investment in this sector of the agricultural economy so closely associated with the poorest producers and consumers.

Scenarios for Successful Cassava-based Development

Demand for starch for industry and dried cassava for animal feed will grow and create a demand for low-cost, high-quality energy sources. In urban markets, the very lowest income families apply additional income to higher consumption of staples such as farinha. Cassava producers will respond by adopting new varieties and basic yield-increasing agronomic practices, especially fertilizer and mechanical/chemical weed control. They will obtain higher and more uniform quality by managing production and harvesting practices. The principal beneficiaries of the increased income will be the rural poor who occupy the marginal lands, and the urban poor who will have access to food at lower cost.

In Latin America there is an increasing entrepreneurial entry into the cassava sector by small to medium growers and investors. Processing will move to larger, more efficient plants, which will help make cassava products more competitive with alternative energy sources. The move toward larger scale production and processing in some regions will challenge cassava's traditional ability to preferentially benefit the poorest producers. There is a need for processes and varietal traits that can add value at the farm level. Women's employment in the cassava sector will shift from the more menial cultivation and processing functions to include management and factory labor.

One of the primary lessons emerging from global development experiences in the last quarter of this century is that agriculture has as much potential as industrialization to contribute to economic growth. While the Asian model for emerging economies clearly highlighted industrial growth, in Latin America manufacturing has actually declined as a percent of GDP from 1980 to 1995 (World Bank). Agriculture has been a more important engine of growth in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Chile.

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