The coffee growing regions on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro have become progressively warmer and drier over the past 48 years. The minimum temperature is the predominant climatic variable which influences coffee yields over longer-term climatic change. In contrast, the amounts of rainfall and in particular the timing of rainfall at specific growth periods are the most important climatic variables governing coffee yields on the micro-climatic scale. The predicted increase in climate change (temperature) ...

Cowpea is a key cash crop and also a staple food for millions of people in West and Central Africa. Cowpea trade is severely hampered by storage insects especially the cowpea weevil. The Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) project was started in Nigeria in 2008 on a pilot basis in the states of Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, and Plateau. It has since June 2009 been extended to all 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory. The PICS project has introduced hermetic storage in triple layer sacks ...

Based on experiences in the Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (C:AVA) project, this paper examines emerging issues and lessons for adding value to cassava, one of Africa's widely cultivated staples in ways that contribute to the global market environment as well as bring benefits to small holders on the continent. The main issues discussed include: competiveness in the supply of raw material, assisting smallholders to produce value-added products sustainably and competitively, ensuring and maintaining ...

Cassava is an ideal vehicle for delivering provitamin A carotenoids to human populations affected by deficiency of this important micronutrient. Rapid cycling recurrent selection has proven to be very effective increasing carotenoids levels in cassava. The maximum level of total carotenoids increased by about 3 μg / g of fresh root each year. As breeding populations evolve large populations are developed and the selection among them becomes increasingly difficult because most genotypes show intense ...

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is the main starchy staple in many parts of Cameroon, with 80% of rural and urban households consuming cassava and cassava derived products on a daily basis. Cassava products are commercialized mostly to supply household consumer markets with a total estimated equivalent of 1.1 million ton fresh cassava consumed in 2002 mainly because processing rely highly on family labour. Because of the smallholder nature of farming systems and the low density of producers in ...

Anoplolepis tenella Santschi is an afrotropical ant widely distributed in the forest zones of Central Africa. It is the most frequent species associated with the African root and tuber scale (ARTS) Stictococcus vayssierei (Hemiptera: Stictococcidae), an afrotropical insect that infests a wide range of root and tuber plants, particularly cassava. We investigated the biology and ecology of A. tenella which is one of the factors favoring the proliferation of the scale in the field. A. tenella was ...

Yam (Dioscoreaspp.) is a primary agricultural commodity and a traditional staple food over much of West and Central Africa, where it is highly profitable both for producers and traders especially when production and storage strategies are successful in securing the supply of urban markets throughout the year. Insect pests such as mealybugs of the genus Planococcus Ferris (Hem.: Pseudococcidae) and the scale Aspidiellahartii (Cockerell) (Hem.: Diaspididae) can become major constrains causing ...

The initiative of cassava value chain in West Africa has provided sustainable opportunity for transferring best bet agronomic, processing and marketing practices to less privileged small holder enterprises in Nigeria, Benin and Sierra Leone. This project which started 2008, sponsored by Common Fund for Commodities, supervised by FAO and implemented by IITA has been an avenue to improve key players of cassava enterprise in the selected countries to boost their output qualitatively and quantitatively. ...

Cassava is a key food security crop in sub-Saharan Africa, and is increasingly offering opportunities for income generation from the sale of fresh roots, cuttings and diverse processed products. The total fresh root production is increasingly constrained, by the two principal biotic constraints; cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD). Considerable successes have been achieved in mitigating the effects of the CMD pandemic through the multiplication and dissemination ...

In Sub-Saharan Africa, cassava is mainly grown by smallholder farmers who also process the storage roots into traditional food products. However, improper processing techniques combined with climate variability aggravate risks of health hazards caused by residual toxic cyanogens and mycotoxin contamination of the food products. The introduction of improved processing technologies for the production of a diverse range of cassava-based food and industrial products has enhanced the crop's acceptance ...