High-Quality Cassava

Advantages and Nutritional Value of Cassava

Cassava has some natural traits, which make it exceptionally attractive, particularly to the household and micro-farmers in Nigeria and around the world. These traits include richness in carbohydrates, resulting in a multiplicity of the end product exploits. Importantly, cassava is readily available all year, making it desirable to other seasonal crops such as; peas, beans, grains and other crops for food security. Compared to similar crops, cassava is resistant to drought, some diseases, and more tolerant to low and or poor soil fertility. Furthermore, cassava roots can be stored in the ground for several months after maturity. This is one of the traits combined with other socioeconomic considerations that lead the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to conclude, and recognized Cassava is a crop for poverty alleviation (FAO, 2000).

Advantages

Some of the advantages of cassava over similar crops are:

• Poor soils adaptation
• Propagate easily with little or no effort
• Drought resistance
• High yield, regardless of condition
• Production of more carbohydrate
• Not seasonal, planted all year round
• Not seasonal, harvested all year round
• Durability: can be left in the ground and harvested from six to forty months from planting (Ezedinma et al., 2006).

Cassava nutritional values

Cassava is a food with acceptable nutrition value, containing 61% moisture, 37-39% starch, 0.9-2.7% protein, 0.3-0.6% fat, 0.9-1.5% ash, glycosides, toxic cyanides, iron, potassium, calcium, Vitamin A, C, B6, and folic acid (Nigerian Ministry of Health and Nutrition, 2004).

Cassava mandatory cassava quality requirements

For the production of high-quality cassava products (Starch, Flour, Chips and Ethanol), the Product shall comply with the following requirements and quality standards, assuring that your Cassava are inspected and controlled during farming, cultivating, transporting, storing, processing and use for the production of Cassava Ethanol, Cassava Starch, Cassava Flour, and Cassava Snack Chips as provided below.

Avoiding pesticide residues and contaminants

Pesticide residues are one of the crucial issues for fruit and vegetable suppliers. To avoid health and environmental damage, the EU has set maximum residue levels (MRLs) for pesticides in and on food products. Fresh cassava containing more pesticides than allowed will be withdrawn from the market. The same goes if it contains contaminants such as heavy metals. Note that retailers in several EU Member States such as Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, as well as the United Kingdom, use MRLs that are stricter than the MRLs laid down in European legislation.

Avoiding GMO cassava

There have been initiatives in Africa to genetically modify cassava (GMO) to improve pest resistance. Although this could solve local issues with food security, in the European market GMO food crops need to be authorized before putting them on the market. For the purpose of this project, we lay emphasis on the production of high-quality non-GMO cassava varieties.

Following phytosanitary regulations

As from December 2019, new European regulation came into force for the trade in plants and plant products from non-EU countries. This regulation requires cassava to have a phytosanitary certificate before being brought into the European Union, guaranteeing that it is:

• properly inspected;
• free from quarantine pests, within the requirements for regulated non-quarantine pests and practically free from other pests; and
• in line with the plant health requirements of the EU, laid down in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2072.

For roots and tubers such as cassava, an official statement is required that the consignment or lot does not contain more than 1% by net weight of soil and growing medium. As part of the Bankable development, the Processing shall be provided with its own Food Laboratory.

Cassava Key Quality parameters for the production of high-quality Ethanol

For cassava quality in ethanol production, the key requirements are a high starch content (at least 70% by weight) and a low moisture content (no more than 13%). The cassava must be free from spoilage, moulds, unusual odours, and insects to ensure effective fermentation and prevent microbial interference with the starch, which would reduce ethanol yield. Additionally, minimal sand and soil (less than 2% by weight) is necessary to avoid process disruption and contamination.

Importance of the Cassava Quality

• Casava high starch content is crucial. Cassava is a rich source of fermentable substances, and higher starch content directly translates to more sugar for fermentation and thus more ethanol.
• Cassava microbial degradation. Spoiled and decayed cassava can lead to microbial use of the starch as a carbon source, significantly reducing the available starch for ethanol production. This means microbial degradation reduces the quality and quantity of the ethanol and therefore increase significantly the production cost of ethanol.
• Cassava process efficiency. Clean cassava reduces the burden on separation units, like hydrocyclones, which are required to remove sand and other impurities.

Maintaining high quality standards

For Cassava, the general marketing standards of the European Union as defined by EU regulation 543/2011 (see table 1 in the next section) also apply. For more specific standards you can also use the Codex Alimentarius ('Food code' of the Food and Agriculture Organisation) that contains marketing standards for Sweet Cassava and Bitter Cassava.

The Annual Consumption Quantity of Cassava by the Ethanol

The total annual consumption of HQ Raw Cassava of the Ethanol Plant shall be 100,000 MT, which is required for the production of 36,600 MT (or 12,027,766 Gallons or 45,530,400 Litres) of HQ Cassava Ethanol (99.6%).

Raw Cassava Delivery to the Ethanol Production Plant

Since the Ethanol Plant is designed to consume 100,000 MT of HQ Raw Cassava per year and operate 30 days per month (i.e. 360 days annually, representing 278 MT per day), a total number 14 trucks shall be required to collect and transport the Raw Cassava from Ten (10) major collecting points within Enugu.

The Fourteen (14) Trucks shall be custom se designed with a loading capacity of 20T and supplied by Tatra. The Trucks shall collect and transport the Raw Cassava to the Plant within a radius of 50 km under FOB basis.

Each delivery centre shall be provided with contamination scanning systems and weight.

NOTE: The Cassava shall be delivered to the collection point cleaned and without leaf and stem. The raw cassava should be delivered to the ethanol plant within 3 to 4 days of harvesting because of its high moisture content and rapid spoilage as scheduled and provided below.

Raw cassava delivery timeline to the ethanol plant after harvesting

As stated above, due to its high moisture content and rapid spoilage, raw cassava should be delivered to the ethanol plant within 3 to 4 days from its effective date of harvesting. If immediate processing is not possible, cassava can be harvested and sent to local chopping facilities, where it's peeled and chopped into chips, then sun-dried for 2-3 days to reduce moisture and increase shelf life before being transported to the ethanol plant.

Delivery timeline breakdown