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.

Introduction; The smallholder socioeconomic environment; Cassava production with purchased inputs; Cassava production response to use of purchased inputs; Production for sale; Household cash income generation; Impact of high-yielding varieties on cassava cash income; Summary of observations and conclusion.

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.

Cassava is second only to sweet potatoes as the most important starchy root crop of the tropics. Cassava refers to roots of the plant, whereas tapioca denotes baked products of cassava flour. The plant grows easily, has large yields, and is little affected by diseases and pests. The plant, grown for edible tubers, is a staple food in many tropical countries, an important source of starch, and valuable as a famine relief crop. Industrial use of the crop is expanding. Cassava products are used for bath human and animal consumption. Discussion includes cultivation practices, processing operations for flour and starch, baked tapioca products, starch factories, product utilization, quality control, world trade, and predictions of future industrial developments and uses.

Crop Physiology: Case Histories of Major Crops updates the physiology of broad-acre crops with a focus on the genetic, environmental and management drivers of development, capture and efficiency in the use of radiation, water and nutrients, the formation of yield and aspects of quality. These physiological process are presented in a double context of challenges and solutions. The challenges to increase plant-based food, fodder, fiber and energy against the backdrop of population increase, climate change, dietary choices and declining public funding for research and development in agriculture are unprecedented and urgent. The proximal technological solutions to these challenges are genetic improvement and agronomy. Hence, the premise of the book is that crop physiology is most valuable when it engages meaningfully with breeding and agronomy. With contributions from 92 leading scientists from around the world, each chapter deals with a crop: maize, rice, wheat, barley, sorghum and oat; quinoa; soybean, field pea, chickpea, peanut, common bean, lentil, lupin and faba bean; sunflower and canola; potato, cassava, sugar beet and sugarcane; and cotton. A crop-based approach to crop physiology in a G x E x M context Captures the perspectives of global experts on 22 crops