The
Cassava Series: Trade, Research and Productivity
How
to ensure food security, the example of roots and tubers (cassava)
“It is better to teach people how to fish than to give
them the fish,” is one of the favorite sayings of FAO's
Director-General, Jacques Diouf. FAO’s work with a crop
called cassava is taking that philosophy to heart. From South
Asia to Africa to Latin America, the international community,
farmers, private businesses, consumers and researchers are
joining hands to make cassava production, processing and trade
easier and more profitable for the farmer. World Food Day
is about raising awareness on food security, cassava is a
crop that is alleviating hunger and allowing rural communities
to be more independent, let us take a look at how and why.
Features:
Cassava production in no way ends once the farmer has dug
it out of the ground; processing, packaging and marketing
cassava are just as challenging as planting and harvesting.
In Africa, women farmers want to be a part of all aspects
of the cassava process. Let us take a look at how four women
are working together to promote better farming polices that
will both protect the farmer from disease and help the local
farmer attract more trade.
Producer: Liliane Kambirigi
Sound Engineer/Mixer: Eric Deleu
Taking seeds of Brazilian cassava and breeding them with African
varieties, then taking the new scientifically-modified seeds
back to Brazil to fight disaster-causing agents like the white
fly, green mites, drought, sounds tough. This is just one
example of the kind of international cooperation the cassava
community requires in order to protect the industry and the
local farmer from losing his crop and his food security. FAO
talks to the experts who are improving cassava production
by creating disease-resistant varieties and by lobbying for
better farming policies.
Producer: Catherine Gazzoli
Co-producer: Liliane Kambirigi
Sound Engineer/Mixer: Eric Deleu
Thailand is an excellent example of how the value of a crop
can be turned around. Cassava is not a traditional crop for
South Asia as it is for Latin America and Africa. Yet with
the cooperation of the Government of Thailand and research
organizations, farmers have found that cassava can be used
to make products high in demand by the international export
market. Let us take a look at how Thailand took an unimportant,
obscure crop and turned it into an important, highly lucrative
one.
Producer: Catherine
Gazzoli
Co-producer: Liliane Kambirigi
Sound Engineer/Mixer: Eric Deleu
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