Eaten by both humans and animals, and with more than 20 derivative products, cassava offers considerable opportunities for income and advantages for food security. This versatile shrub is widely used in the food, textiles and other industries. For example, cassava tubers may be sold for preparation into pastries, tapioca, food pasta or chips, while the plant’s by-products include paper, glues and alcohol. Attractively laid out, with step-by-step guides and a wealth of colourful figures, illustrations and tables, this handbook makes simple techniques available to cassava producers, improving production, storage and processing.

In 2011, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Democratic Republic of Congo’s government launched the Food Production, Processing, and Marketing project—which aimed to raise incomes and improve food security in the target areas by improving agricultural productivity, market efficiency, and the capacity of producers to respond to market signals. In August–October 2013 and February–March 2014, halfway through the project’s implementation, a midline survey was conducted to assess progress with respect to intermediate outcomes. The present paper highlights the results of that assessment survey. We pay close attention to accurate attribution of observed changes to the project and employ a double-difference method that compares the changes in indicators before the project and at the time of the survey (project midline) between the beneficiaries and comparable control groups. Overall, the survey results suggest weak impact on most of the outcome indicators, and they highlight challenges in implementing small-scale farmers’ capacity building within the context of weak institutions and a fragile political context.

Cassava Mosaic Disease and Cassava Brown Streak Disease have devastated the food security and income of millions of cassava-dependent farm families. The Great Lakes Cassava Initiative (GLCI), managed by CRS and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was developed to respond to the crisis. GLCI operates in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda with the goal of distributing healthy cassava planting material of farmer-accepted disease-tolerant varieties to 1.15 million farm families to alleviate food insecurity and increase incomes. The initiative is a multi-dimensional project that includes a combination of research and development activities. Research activities include studies to improve disease control through improved varieties and quality management, as well as the development of a diagnostic tool for CBSD. Other activities include building capacity among national agriculture research and development partners, strengthening farmer group development, and conducting multiplication and dissemination of planting material.--From the CRS web site.

Cassava is Africa's second most important food crop. The cassava transformation that is now underway in West Africa is fueled by new high yielding TMS varieties that have transformed cassava from a low-yielding, famine-reserve crop to a high-yielding cash crop for both rural and urban consumers. The book highlights the role of cassava as a "poverty fighter" by increasing cassava productivity and driving down the cost of cassava in rural and urban diets.