For further information contact: CIAT

Cassava in Southeast Asia: From Hard Times to Modern Times

March 1997

Centuries ago Portuguese traders carried the crop from its original home in Latin America to Africa and then Asia. Today farmers on all these continents cling to cassava because it seldom lets them down. Highly tolerant to infertile soils and drought, it guarantees survival in the harsh marginal environments to which societies have relegated many of the rural poor.

Cassava's starchy roots provide food or a livelihood for one out of ten of the world's citizens. About 200 million of these 500 million people live in sub-Saharan Africa, where hunger still lurks just outside the family compound. In Asia the humble root crop is grown on 3.9 million hectares, even more than in Latin America. Asia's main producers of the crop are Thailand, Indonesia, India, southern China, and Vietnam.

Most Asian farmers, like their African counterparts, have traditionally considered cassava a crop of last resort. It has helped Vietnam through at least two major famines since World War II and was a staple of the Vietnamese army during the wars with France and the USA, according to Prof. Thai Phien of Vietnam's National Institute for Soils and Fertilizers. Throughout much of Indonesia, particularly on densely populated Java, the crop is still produced mainly to supplement rice.

In many places, though, cassava is rapidly acquiring a new image as valuable raw material for starch production and animal feed. As such, it offers farmers, not just a guarantee of their next meal, but a new opportunity to climb out of poverty and banish hunger for good.

Vietnam: Getting a Share of the Economic Miracle

The crop that saved millions of lives during Vietnam's hard times is now enabling thousands to earn more cash income as the country races to catch up with modern times.

Over the last 2 years, improved varieties developed in Thailand have spread to nearly 10 percent of Vietnam's total cassava area of 283,000 hectares, notes Dr. Hoang Kim, director of the Hung Loc Agricultural Research Center in Dong Nai province. The new varieties increase farmers' crop yields by 20 to 40 percent, and their roots have higher starch contents, says Dr. Kazuo Kawano, a cassava breeder with the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

Greater starch yields from the same amount of land translate into higher income for farmers who sell cassava to starch processors. As this market for the crop rapidly expands in Vietnam, many farmers are finally getting a share of Southeast Asia's economic miracle.

Much of the starch processing is performed in large-scale modern factories, which were built by Taiwanese and Japanese firms after Vietnam's economy was opened to foreign investment a few years ago. The Taiwanese company Vedan, for example, has invested nearly US$250 million in a huge facility in Dong Nai, according to president Joel Wang. The plant can handle 800 tons of fresh cassava per day, plus another 400 tons of wet starch purchased from small processing enterprises. Both large and small starch processors currently absorb at least 16 percent of the country's cassava production. Most of the dried starch goes to domestic manufacturers of processed foods (mainly monosodium glutamate, an important flavoring agent in Asia), while some is used in the production of textiles, paper, and other products. A small amount is exported.

In northern Vietnam starch processing is still dominated by small operations in rural households. Despite their laborious traditional methods, processors in Duong Lieu village, a short distance from Hanoi, have doubled production over the last 2 years in response to rising demand for starch. Processing provides employment for 80 percent of the village's 2,300 families as well as an expanding market for cassava growers in surrounding communities.

Some farmers, especially in northern Vietnam, sell only part of their harvest for starch production and put the rest into what Mao called "fertilizer factories on four legs." By feeding cassava to pigs, farmers can fatten more animals more quickly. Demand for pork is increasing, as larger incomes enable consumers to buy more meat. Pigs are also farmers' major source of manure, which is vital for maintaining soil fertility.

High-starch cassava is spreading quickly in Vietnam for a number of reasons. First, over the last 7 or 8 years, key research leaders, such as Dr. Pham Van Bien, director of the Institute of Agricultural Science in southern Vietnam, have decided to place higher priority on the crop, despite its second-class status. The reasoning behind their decision, explains Bien, was straightforward. Once scientists had helped the country achieve self-sufficiency in rice (which Vietnam now exports), they had to do something for the poor farmers, many of them belonging to various minority groups. Most of these people farm in upland or mountainous areas, where only small amounts of land are suitable for intensive rice production. Cassava is an important crop in those areas, where it often represents farmers' best hope for raising their incomes.

The Thai Cassava Boom

Another reason for the relative speed of cassava development in Vietnam is that the country is essentailly repeating a phenomenon that is already quite advanced in Thailand.

Like their counterparts in other countries of the region, farmers in southern Thailand once grew cassava on a small scale mainly for subsistence. Then, in the late 1950s, the character of production began to change radically. In response to heavy demand for nongrain feed ingredients from the European Union (EU), Thailand began drying cassava to produce chips and pellets for export. This had a significant positive impact on farm income, employment, and foreign exchange earnings. The area planted to cassava rose dramatically, and production shifted from the Southeast toward the less favorable upland environments of the Northeast.

In the mid-1980s, the Thai cassava boom ran into trouble. The EU established quotas restricting the amount of dried cassava they would receive from Asian countries at favorable tariffs. Other warning signs were farmers' reliance on a single cassava variety, Rayong 1, and declining yields on the poor soils of Northeast Thailand.

During the early 1990s, the country's cassava exports received another blow. The EU reduced its subsidies on domestic grain production, lowering the price for European livestock producers. To compete with grain in Europe's animal feed market, Thailand had to lower the price of dried cassava.

The evident vulnerability of the country's single market for its cassava underscored the need to explore new ways of using the starchy root and its products. The private sector has responded to this challenge by vigorously exploiting the potential of the crop as a cheap source of starch.

Currently, half of Thailand's cassava production is destined for this use. The country's most promising option appears to be processing of modified starch, which is produced through chemical or physical alteration of "native" starch for specific uses. With little government intervention, processing of modified starch has developed rapidly in Thailand for several reasons. Domestic demand for the product is high; there are few trade barriers against exports; and the country's impressive economic growth has allowed it to invest in advanced processing technology. About half of Thailand's starch production is absorbed by domestic markets, and the rest is exported to Taiwan and Japan, according to reports from Kasetsart University in Bangkok. Cassava starch is used in a wide variety of products, including processed foods, paper, textiles, and pharmaceuticals.

In an effort to keep cassava production in line with industrial demand, the Thai government launched a massive program in 1993 to reduce the area planted to cassava by about 20 percent and to help farmers intensify cassava production on the area remaining.

The centerpiece of the program is a series of improved varieties (such as Rayong 3, 5, 60, and 90 and Kasetsart 50), which were developed from crosses between local and Latin American germplasm. The new varieties have resulted from Kawano's longstanding collaboration with the Field Crops Research Institute of Thailand's Department of Agriculture. The Japanese government has supported CIAT's cassava research in Asia and Latin America for more than a decade.

By 1996 the new cassava had spread to about 384,000 hectares or nearly a third of the country's total cassava area, explains Wilawan Vongkasem of the Department of Agricultural Extension. The Department's strategy for disseminating new varieties is simple but effective. Extension officers contract farmers to plant a small area to particular varieties. Growers receive planting stakes or cuttings free, on the condition that they will deliver three stakes from each cassava plant in their next harvest for dissemination of the improved varieties to other farmers. With the remaining stakes from each plant, they can also spread the new varieties to larger areas on their own farms.

The cassava processing industry is helping distribute new varieties through the Thai Tapioca Development Institute (in Thailand "tapioca" refers collectively to all cassava products). With funds from a quota paid by tapioca exporters, the Institute provides a free, 2- or 3-day training course in cassava production for 7,000 farmers every year. Upon completing the course, each participant receives a bundle of planting stakes.

Benefits and Risks

Thailand's recent experience with cassava has yielded abundant evidence that small farmers in marginal areas can better their lot once crop production is linked to lucrative markets at home and abroad. Further evidence comes from southern Sumatra, where improved cassava is grown on about 111,000 hectares, mainly for starch production. Now, Vietnam is set to repeat the experience of Thailand and Indonesia.

By 1996 total area planted to new high-starch cassava varieties in Southeast Asia had reached a half million hectares. According to preliminary but conservative estimates, the varieties have generated economic benefits of nearly a half billion dollars over the last 7 years, with most of the money received in the last 2 years. In Thailand the cost of cassava roots accounts for just over half of the starch processors' production costs, suggesting that farmers are getting a fair price. Medium and large processors routinely pay farmers a premium for cassava roots having higher starch contents. For that reason and because cassava is grown predominantly in marginal areas by small farmers, it is safe to assume that most of the financial benefits of the improved varieties have wound up in the pockets of the rural poor.

With the benefits, however, have come risks. In 1995 cassava prices were quite high in Thailand and Vietnam, prompting farmers to expand the area planted. Then in 1996 prices dropped considerably because of overproduction and declining starch prices in the world market. In Thailand some growers lobbied successfully for cassava price subsidies.

Another development that should lessen the risk for farmers is the private sector's continuing efforts to further diversify cassava products and markets. It is also vital that

researchers and farmers continue to strive for more efficient production. Competing demands for cassava roots should enable growers to obtain better prices, and more efficient production will further increase their returns from the same amount of land.

Diverse products and efficient production are key elements of Southeast Asia's economic miracle. They are also necessary conditions for farmers to get a fair share of the benefits from growing industrial markets for cassava.

One weak link in the chain of events that has raised the incomes of poor farmers and created employment in starch processing is the fragility of upland soils on which cassava is grown. To meet rising demand for cassava, farmers must intensify cultivation, raising the specter of serious soil erosion, warns CIAT agronomist Reinhardt Howeler.

With a grant from Japan's Nippon Foundation, he is working closely with national institutes and farmers to find solutions. Various options have emerged, such as the use of vetiver grass to create "live" barriers against erosion. Farmers at more than a dozen pilot sites have proved eager to experiment with them, suggesting that environmentally sustainable cassava production is within their reach.

Farmer Profile: Thailand

The daughter of a pioneer family, Thai farmer Daruni Sinlaa is not afraid to explore new ground. About 2 years ago, she adopted three improved varieties of cassava under a massive government program to increase the efficiency of production.

Daruni received planting stakes or cuttings from Thailand's Department of Agricultural Extension. In exchange she agreed to provide three stakes from each plant in her next harvest for dissemination of the improved varieties to other farmers. With the remaining stakes from each cassava plant, she spread the new varieties to a larger area of her 5-hectare farm.

According to Daruni and other farmers in the village of Wang Sombuun in Thailand's eastern Sra Kaew province, the new varieties yield more and have higher starch content. Daruni says the cassava dryers give her a better price, because the high-starch cassava dries more quickly. Particularly in 1995, when prices for the crop were high, her income from cassava production increased. That better enabled her to pay off debts, with money left over to start building a new house.

Daruni's parents came to this land 20 years ago just after it had been cleared of forest. Their lives were hard, and so is hers, though she claims to be better off. If her production of maize, cassava, and other crops continues to prosper, Daruni hopes to provide her two sons with a good education. Her dream is that as professionals they will leave behind the pioneer struggle of their parents and grandparents.

Prichaa Bunsorn, Daruni's unmarried neighbor, is also looking to the future, but his gaze is fixed more on the small farm he will inherit from his father and which he already manages. The city life holds no allure for Prichaa, despite its promise of a better income; he has been to Bangkok and hates the pollution and traffic. The only environmental problem he wants to confront is the soil erosion in his cassava, which is planted near the base of a steep hill.

As a participant in a soil erosion trial organized by extension officers under a project coordinated by CIAT and funded by Japan's Nippon Foundation, Prichaa has become more aware of the problem and has experimented with several possible solutions. Based on the trial results, which he discussed with other farmers at a recent meeting, Prichaa will plant his cassava on ridges across rather than down the slope and will plant barriers of vetiver grass to slow the runoff during heavy rains.

Farmer Profile: Northern Vietnam

To support a family of five on a half hectare of good land is difficult enough. But when most of the land lies on an erosion-prone slope, the task becomes almost unimaginable.

Yet, that is precisely what Bui Van Tho and other farmers must do in the village of Dong Rang in Vietnam's northern Hoa Binh province. They belong to an ethnic minority group, the Muong, who live mainly in marginal upland areas.

Each of the 92 families in this village has been alloted an average of 0.2 hectares of flat, irrigated land for growing rice. This is generally sufficient to keep them fed but not always. Whatever else the farmers can provide for their families comes from the production of cassava, taro, peanuts, and sugarcane on steep slopes. Cassava growers sell about half of their production to starch processors in a village about 30 kilometers away. They feed the rest to pigs, which are one of the farmers' best means of earning and saving cash.

A few years ago, Tho and his neighbor saw signs of trouble on their hillside plots. "We realized that production was going down, but we weren't sure why and didn't know what to do," he says.

Answers to these questions have emerged from an experiment conducted by Tho and nine other farmers with technical help from Vietnam's National Institute for Soils and Fertilizers. Their work is part of a project coordinated by CIAT in four Southeast Asian countries, with funding from Japan's Nippon Foundation.

The farmer experimenters have established different types of barriers across the slopes, using plants such as vetiver grass and Tephrosia, a leguminous shrub. Just below each experimental plot, they have dug a trench and lined it with plastic to gauge the amount of sediment washed away by rain.

Based on the results, Tho has decided to extend the vetiver grass or Tephrosia barriers next season. Over time terraces will form behind them, providing further protection against erosion. Though the barriers occupy land that could be devoted to crop production, Tho and other farmers expect that the increased yields of the new cassava varieties they have just tested will more than compensate for the loss.

Farmer Profile: Northern Vietnam

Dreams are hard to come by in Tien Phong village of northern Vietnam's Thai Nguyen province. "Though we're doing alright now," says farmer Ngo Trung Kien, "life will get more difficult as the population increases."

Indeed, cropping is already very intensive in the village, and it is difficult to imagine where any additional production will come from. Nguyen Thi Mao, for example, farms about three-quarters of a hectare, of which only about a fifth is suitable for home gardening and cultivation of irrigated rice. Almost half of her land can be sown to maize and peanut, but nearly a third lies on steep slopes with sandy soils that are highly susceptible to erosion.

Yet her prospects are perhaps not so bleak, particularly now that the "dream team" has come to town. Riding Honda Dream motorcycles, a team of researchers from the nearby Bac Thai Agroforestry College visits the village periodically to discuss experiments that Mao and two dozen other farmers are carrying out. Some of the trials compare improved cassava varieties with the traditional cultivars; others examine the effects of fertilizer on crop production; and still others compare various alternatives for controlling erosion in sloping upland fields.

Though the jury is still out on the new varieties, Mao and other farmers have already decided to experiment further with "live" barriers made of vetiver grass and Tephrosia, a leguminous shrub. Both plants are effective for controlling erosion, a serious concern in the village, and clippings from the legume serve as a "green manure" to maintain soil fertility. One group member has suggested that they plant alternating rows of vetiver and Tephrosia on steep slopes. Between live barriers, farmers have started to intercrop cassava with peanut to improve erosion control; the peanut residues also provide a green manure for cassava.

They sell the peanuts in local markets and dry their cassava to be used as pig feed. More sustainable production of these crops will safeguard two of the village's best hopes for raising income.

Farmer profile: Southern Vietnam

Hao Duoc village lies on a line that divides two worlds. On one side, farmers reap abundant rice harvests on small plots of fertile, irrigated land. On the other, people make do on farms that are larger but have less fertile soils and no irrigation.

Ta Van Chien and Sam Tan Phat inhabit this latter world in Vietnam's prosperous Thay Ninh province. Though Chien and Phat lead very different lives, they have a common ground. Both depend for their livelihoods on the starchy roots of cassava, one of the few crops that grow well in marginal uplands.

Like most of his neighbors, Chien began cultivating cassava nearly 15 years ago, when chronic food shortages increased the demand for this reliable staple. As Vietnam emerged from its food crisis, the area planted to cassava decreased. But Chien continued growing the crop, because he saw no alternative.

What for Chien became a necessity, Phat saw as an opportunity. He established a small processing plant for extracting starch from the cassava roots. As long as farmers grew low-yielding, low-starch varieties, however, Phat's processing capacity remained small at about 10 tons of fresh roots per day.

Then, a few years ago, local extension officers brought new high-starch varieties to Hao Duoc from the Hung Loc Agricultural Research Center in neighboring Dong Nai province. By adopting the improved cassava, Chien and other farmers greatly increased their production and provided Phat with higher quality raw material. Encouraged by these developments, Phat invested about US$80,000 dollars (his life savings plus a small bank loan) in new processing equipment. Now, his factory handles about 50 tons of cassava roots per day and employs 20 people.

In 1995, both Chien and Phat did extremely well. Chien earned about $2,000, an incredible sum for most upland farmers. He used most of the money to double the size of his land holdings and to establish a small rubber plantation. Phat sold dry starch to buyers in Ho Chi Minh City. Alhough the prices of starch and cassava roots fell considerably in 1996, the longer term prospects are good. As Southeast Asia's economic miracle gathers momentum, consumption of processed foods, paper, textiles, and other products containing starch will increase exponentially, driving up the demand for cassava.

Chien and Phat now have a toehold in Vietnam's new market economy, and both are better prepared than before to reap its benefits and manage its risks.

Email Page Link to a Friend