Abstract
Cassava is an important starchy staple crop in Ghana with per capita consumption of 152.9 kg/year. Besides being a staple food crop, cassava can be used as raw material for the production of industrial starch and ethanol. The potential of cassava as an industrial commercial crop has not been exploited to a large extent because of perceptions that cassava depletes soils. Recent finding from field studies in the forest/savannah transitional agroecological zone of Ghana indicates that when integrated in the cropping system as a form of rotation, cassava contributes significantly to maintenance of soil fertility, and thus large scale production of cassava for industrial use can contribute to poverty reduction in an environmentally responsive way. This paper discusses the role of cassava cultivation in soil fertility management and its implication for farming system sustainability and industrialization.
Highlights
Cassava is an important starchy staple crop in Ghana with per capita consumption of 152.9 kg/year [1]
8,561,700 MT is available for human consumption while national consumption is estimated at only 3,672,700 MT resulting in surplus of about 4,889,000 MT which can be exploited for the production of industrial starch or ethanol
According to [8], cassava is frequently grown on marginal soils. This is attributed to increasing population densities which often result in land pressure and successively shorter fallow periods thereby compelling farmers to allocate more of their land to cassava production [9]
Summary
Cassava is an important starchy staple crop in Ghana with per capita consumption of 152.9 kg/year [1]. In the forest/savannah transitional agroecological zone of Ghana, farmers often rotate maize with cowpea and when they observe decline in productivity, the land is cropped to cassava for a period ranging between 12 to 18 months after which the maize/cowpea rotation is resumed [6]. According to [8], cassava is frequently grown on marginal soils This is attributed to increasing population densities which often result in land pressure and successively shorter fallow periods thereby compelling farmers to allocate more of their land to cassava production [9]. In the forest/savannah transitional agroecological zone of Ghana where cassava is widely grown and used as soil fertility regenerating crop, cassava cultivation is intertwined with several factors such as ethnicity, access to resources (including labour, cash, and land), gender, and wealth. This paper discusses the role of cassava cultivation in soil fertility management and its implication for farming system sustainability and industrialization
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