I thought I would talk about the Cassava factory in this blog post.
Thulasy and I traveled by bicycle taxi to the village where Danny lives and the factory is located.
Masinda Cassava Starch Factory was started by IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture) to improve farmer’s livelihoods and demonstrate the economic viability of extracting starch from cassava. In both respects the project has been successful.
Daily the factory buys 2 to 3 ox cart loads of cassava from local farmers.
The extraction process is quite simple and functions in this remote location where they have access to water from a local stream, but no electricity.
The cassava is grated and then passed through a series of sieves. The physical movement of the cassava through the process is aided by water and human muscles. The grating is the one exception, which is done by a diesel powered industrial grinder.
Once the cassava has been grated and sieved it is passed through a series of settling basins. The starch precipitates out of the solution within 45 minutes and then is collected by hand and spread in the sun to dry.
17% by weight of the cassava is recovered as starch by this process. Once the factory has produced a sufficient quantity, it is milled, packaged and transported to a packaging manufacturer in the southern Malawian town of Blantyre. If it were not for the cassava factory, this particular packaging company would have to import 100% of it’s starch. The Masinda factory is one of a kind, but is encouraging copycats to set up shop, as the market for starch in Malawi is large and Masinda has no desire of satisfying the demand on it's own.
Nina
3 comments:
In India, in the Kolli hills, cassava factories down on the plain had the effect of displacing nutritious millets from farmers' fields. The farmers grew cassava for cash, but could not replace the nutrition of the millet by buying food with the cash they received. (That's a very, very brief summary.)
Is there any evidence of similar effects in Zambia? Was it even a consideration?
Thanks.
Jeremy
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