Processing sweet potatoes and cassava

Kufunda Village, one of the partners of the Volens Sustainable Agriculture Network, hosted a Volens sponsored workshop about processing sweet potatoes and cassava for 20 persons from Mutuko (north east of Harare). Processing seems a big word, but it boils down to broaden the participants’ knowledge about possibilities of using those two crops in the kitchen (read: cooking lesson).

Yes, this is important. Instead of just boiling the sweet potatoes for lunch or dinner, participants learned to make flower, muffins, chips, French fries, juice, jam, relish and bread out of them. Quite a variation, all with the same veggie! And same thing is valid for cassava. “During these 3 days, I have said too many times ‘Oh, I used to throw that part away’. Now I know how to use all parts of the different vegetables, and this will contribute greatly to my family’s food security”, confessed a participant.

Why those two particular crops and not maize, or wheat? “Sweet potatoes and cassava are drought resistant. So even when the rainy season has been bad, those two crops grow without too much trouble and become an important source of food for the rural communities”, explained Elisabeth, one of the two facilitators, “whereas wheat and maize suffer greatly from lack of water. Also, sweet potatoes and cassava require just a little bit of fertilisers, in quantities that smallholder farmers can easily afford. Although maize is our staple crop, sweet potato and cassava are the ones we could survive on! The problem is that farmers don’t know that they can make all those things out of sweet potatoes and cassava and that they’re quite reluctant to learn new things. Our job here is to show people what the possibilities are and to expand their knowledge on processing those crops.”

One would think only women would be interested in processing food. Well, one would be wrong. A group of women explained they were surprised to see 7 men amongst them. “It’s because someone told them they could make money with the skills they would learn here.“ General laughter.

Caroline and Thomas arrived right on time for a full tasting session of the sweet potato recipes – lucky them! Neither of them really enjoy sweet potatoes the way they are usually cooked, but in the form of muffins, juice, crisps and beignets, it’s a delicacy.â—¾

Watch some joy-songs of the participants on the video!