Hardier Cassava Offers Promise for Hungry Africa From this field nestled among the lush rolling hills of Nigeria's southwest, the small plants rising out the hard red dirt appear fragile, easily crushed by weather or chance. Looks, however, are deceiving. These cassava plants will grow into a dense thicket of hard, bamboo-like shoots within a year, with roots so massive a single planted hectare can provide three tons of food. The plants survive fires, droughts and pestilence, while offering a vital food source for more than 500 million people living across sub-Saharan Africa. It is in these lowly tubers, scientists at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture say, that the continent will find a way to feed itself no matter what. "Come war, come anything, the farmer who has cassava has food," said Richardson Okechukwu, the institute's coordinator for cassava research. In Nigeria, a nation where dinner tables often see a pounded cassava product called eba eaten by hand with soups and dishes, the plant remains a vital food in the country. Recently, it has even become a political prop by the nation's president. Scientists at the institute and others fighting hunger hope that efforts to make cassava heartier and more nutritious will help feed a continent where famine and scarcity still plague nations. To the uninitiated, the cassava looks more like a misshapen log or tree branch. The plants themselves are not indigenous to Africa, instead brought over from South America in the 1600s by the Portuguese. Those preparing it cut the skin off, then squeeze out the water within the root before frying it to make garri. Most Nigerians eat it by peeling the starchy soft material from a ball and dipping it into different sauces that accompany fish or meat. Cassava also can be ground into flour. In other parts of Africa, people consider the leaves of a cassava plant as a delicacy, eating it in a soup or frying it. Nigeria is the world's top cassava producer, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, with Brazil and Thailand behind it. The plant thrives in this West African nation, often without needing too much help from farmers, which makes it valuable in a country where most still do agriculture by hand, rather than with machines. While the plant flourishes now, changing weather patterns across Africa make it important to have a stronger cassava available for farmers, said Robert Asiedu, the director for West Africa at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. "Although cassava has helped us so many years, we can no longer take it for granted," Asiedu said. We need to make it even more hardy as the dry periods are getting longer and the soil fertility is declining. "If we really damage the environment to the extent that cassava can't grow ... you can forget about" other plants, he said. With that in mind, scientists continue to study the plant at the institute, located on a preserve just north of the city of Ibadan. Its laboratories contain varieties of cassava growing in test tubes. Giant freezers there hold seeds dating back more than three decades, though most scientists work with cuttings of the cassava, as seeds can have different genetic attributes.