Potential utilization of major root crops, with special emphasis on human, animal, and industrial uses
1984
Coursey, D.G.
Root crops in developing countries are mainly used for human food. Most are still grown by small scale farmers, who operate within the subsistence economy, with only limited off takes of produce to the market economy supplying the rapidly growing urban centres. With cassava in much of Latin America, yams in West Africa and the Caribbean, and taro in the Pacific, a trend exists, and may be expected to increase with future urbanization, toward semicommercial or commercial production, together with the development of more sophisticated marketing systems. Yams and, in most circumstances, taro, other aroids and minor root crops command too high a price for significant amounts to be available for uses other than human food, although peelings, waste, etc. are used as animal feed in subsistence economies. Cassava is in a completely different category, the costs of equicaloric amounts being only about one fifth of those of yam. Similarly, sweet potato, with two to four crops per year, is productive and like cassava is seldom a preferred food. These two crops can, therefore, supply substantial surpluses beyond food demands; the former, especially, is already being exploited for animal feed, edible and industrial starch, and other derived products. Although alternative uses of tropical root crops will probably increase, their primary role is likely to remain as human food in producing countries.
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