Nairobi — Cassava may be your saviour, literally.

"We must sing for you, Great cassava, we must sing," wrote Flora Nwapa, a Nigerian novelist and poet, in praise of cassava during the 1967 Nigerian civil war.

Four decades later, history appears to be repeating itself, but in another place. Today in Mukuyuni village, Makueni District, residents have reason to sing the praises of the cassava plant for delivering them from the perennial bondage of hunger.

Just as during the Nigerian civil war over Biafra from July 6, 1967 to January 15, 1970, in 1940 Mukuyuni villagers survived the so-called Cassava Famine thanks to the hardy tuber.

Today they have enthusiastically embraced new, early maturing cassava varieties as the answer to the perennial food shortages in Ukambani.

As one descends the winding road on the hill overlooking the village, a receding forest gives way to fields of lush cassava plants.

Green Valley Multipurpose Cooperative, a farmers' group in the village, is wotrking to debunk the long-held myth that cassava is associated with poverty and subsistence farming, in which households just grow enough for their own consumption.

At the trading centre, a cassava processing plant has been opened to add value to a crop that has long been neglected.

With the opening of the processing plant, supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), the cooperative is seeking to demonstrate that cassava not only has great potential to end food insecurity but also to create wealth and drive rural development.

Cooperative chairman Peter Kiteme says although the processing plant was set up in 2008, a crop failure delayed its operation until last year when the region recorded a good cassava harvest.

"A severe drought made it impossible for us to start operations, but we expect full operation to pick up in the next six months," he said.

Already, the group is selling cassava flour and cassava gari to villagers at Sh60 and Sh120 respectively, reaping huge benefits from the crop.

He said many lresidents are taking to cassava growing, thus assuring them of a steady supply of tubers to process.

"The demand for cassava products is huge. We cannot pretend that we can meet it," Mr Kiteme said.

In many countries, emphasis is being placed on research to improve the production and utilisation of cassava crops. It is with this in mind that Joseph Kamau of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Katumani, has in the last few years been involved in breeding new cassava varieties.

His efforts have already borne fruit, and farmers are harvesting the first roots of early maturing varieties that are yet to be given names and officially released by the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services.

In search of high yielding, disease-resistant and early maturing cassava breeds, Dr Kamau has developed 23 varieties that have been successfully piloted.

"There is hope of making cassava a central player in achieving food security among households. We have made progress in availing required planting materials," said Dr Kamau, who is the national root crops co-ordinator at Kari.

He said the 23 varieties he has developed, if they are watered, are capable of maturing within a period of six to eight months, significantly reducing the 20 to 36 months it takes traditional varieties to mature. However, Kephis has to select the best and release it formally later this year.

Mercy Karanja, a Kenyan agricultural scientist working in the United States, says cassava, the neglected crop of the down-trodden, could become an elite food crop in the country by promoting its nutritional value.

"There is an urgent need for huge funding to revive interest in neglected traditional food crops. This would go a long way in creating demand and a market for them," said Dr Karanja, a programme officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Experts have consistently argued that if the present awareness of cassava adoption is sustained and given adequate government support, the food situation in the country will improve.

Annual production

In Kenya, cassava is grown on more than 90,000 hectares with an annual production of about 540,000 tonnes. Cultivation is mainly in Western (60 per cent), Eastern (10) and Coast provinces (30). The crop has been grown by peasant farmers for subsistence.

Dr Kamau said in the last planting season, the demand for cassava cuttings stood at eight million in the Ukambani region, but Kari could only supply 1.8 million cuttings. He says each household was allowed to purchase 1,000 cuttings at Sh1 each.

"For an average family size, two cassava plants are enough for all the day's meals. With 1,000 plants, a family can comfortably feed itself for the whole year and have surplus to sell," says Dr Kamau.

The World Bank is currently reviewing a scaling-up plan for Kenya, the Orphan Crop Programme, at a cost of euros 3.0 million (Sh3.3 billion). It will focus on supplying planting materials of orphan crops to smallholder farmers in semi-arid areas and involve promoting farmer involvement in seed bulking and multiplication of orphan and other crops, including sorghum, cassava and millet.

The programme will involve production of about 1,500 metric tonnes of seed and other planting materials for distribution to 100 districts across the country.