Cassava mechanization

Mechanization of Cassava Processing in Iwo Local Government Area of Osun State, NigeriaA study was conducted to assess the different cassava processing machinery available, the mostacceptable machine, effect of machines cost on the acceptability of mechanisation, cost of maintenance andservices of the machines in Iwo Local Government Area, Osun State, Nigeria. The survey was undertaken usingstructured questionnaires administered through a participatory learning technique. The local government wasdivided into four zones and four processing centres were chosen from each zone to give a total of 16 processingcentres. A total of 160 machines were recorded. Grating machines, 75 (46.9%), pressing machine, 59 (36.9%),sifting machines, 3 (1.8%), milling machines, 33 (14.4%) in all the processing centres. Peeling, washing, slicing,chipping, drying and frying operations were predominantly done manually. Sources of power of the machinesare: diesel (84.7%), petrol (9.4%), electricity (5.9%). The diesel engine was widely utilised due to the ruggednessof the processing operations. High cost of most of the machines, cost of maintenance and services wereconstraint to acquisition of the already available machines in the market. Maintenance and service culture ofmost of the processors were poor and this affected the durability of the machines. This study revealed thatcertain cassava processing operations were met for a particular sex. Grating, dewatery, milling operations werepredominantly for men while peeling, washing, drying and frying operations were common among women.INTRODUCTION 70% of total production is processed into garri, lafun andNigeria has been world leading producer of cassava The need to mechanised cassava processing iswith an estimated annual production of 2.6 million tons enormous. Traditional cassava processing has a numberfrom an estimated area of 1.7 million hectares of land [1-2]. of undesirable attributes and this has drawn the attentionThe major problem of cassava is that it is extremely of national agricultural research to devote utmostperishable and the harvested tuber must be processed interest and resources to engineering research into curb post harvest losses [3]. According to Food operations, to minimise the drudgery, enhance commercialand Agriculture Organization (FAO) [4], the estimated quality of the products and labour intensities that areindustrial cassava use was approximately 16 percent of involved in traditional manual operations [6]. The highestcassava root production and was utilised as an industrial share female labour in cassava processing called for anraw material in 2001 in Nigeria. Ten percent was used as urgent need to appropriate gender sensitive machineschips in animal feed, 5 percent was processed into syrup and equipment for cassava processing [7,8]. In garriconcentrate for soft drinks and less than 1 percent was production, peeling and frying constitute a substantialprocessed into high quality cassava flour used in biscuits percentage of the total cost of production. Peeling in

and confectionery, dextrin pre-gelled starch for adhesives, cassava processing has been major bottleneck in thestarch and hydrolysates for pharmaceuticals and mechanisation of cassava due to the varying shapes andseasonings. This estimate left 84 percent or 28.9 million sizes of cassava tubers.tonnes of production for feed consumption, a portion Mechanisation of cassava production and of this was lost in post harvest and wastes. Currently, processing will enhance human capacity in the rural areas.