Cassava peel processing factory under construction in Benue State, Nigeria (photo credit: ILRI / Yinka Olasusi).
Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava, with a yearly output of about 50 million tonnes and a production increase of about 3% yearly.
Presently, about 25 million tonnes of fresh cassava roots are used for garri (a popular West African food made out of cassava tubers), 6 million tonnes for local food products, 1.5 million tonnes for production of dried chips and 3.5 million tonnes are lost to wastage before or during peeling and processing the tuber. This annual amount of cassava production is projected to increase to up to 150 million tonnes by 2020.
Cassava processing generates cassava peels, stumps and undersized or damaged tubers, which together account for up to a third of processed whole-tuber weight. Cassava peels are perishable and are mostly disposed of by burning or allowing them to rot in heaps…
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