Cassava / Manioc Plantation 3

Harvesting of cassava

Cassava takes completely 9 -12 months to harvest. Cassava is mainly harvested with hands by lifting the base of the stem. harvesting after the right time ( 9 -12 month depend on  the variety ) will lead to poor quality harvest and market price will be less. 

After harvesting, the tubers are washed for market or consumption purposes.Cassava can be preserved by drying. it can go for another year when dried without experiencing any decay.  

Cassava Harvest

It is important to harvest cassava carefully as it the damaged cassava tubers can not be stored long time and very likely to get spoiled. therefore the market price for the damaged cassava tubers also is very low. Rough, hard ground condition will result more damages to the corps. Therefore it is adviceable to wet the ground before harvesting or start harvesting just 2-3 days after the rain. 

Cassava tube without damage

However the cassava tubers which are harvested without any damaged to the tubers have good market and can be export to many countries which does not grow cassava. 

Global market price

Growing cassava for commercial exportation is a good business in the world. Cassava farming can lead to lot of revenue benefits if you are able to manage wisely. According to global reports, market price of the good quality cassava is mentioned in the below table. 

Period in years	Price / Ton (US $)
2015	400 - 450
2016	325 - 375
2017	300 - 350

Global Demand

On average, each American consumes about 132 pounds of cassava wheat / cassava  flour per year.

The production volume of cassava has reached to 8 million tons in 2018 and latest analytical review further predicted that by 2024 the market demand will reached to 10 million tons of consumption.

Also cassava is used for many other productions as mentioned in the first post and hope to explain about those value added product in a future post. 

Thanks.