The benefits of research investments in traditional food crops, but also the scope for improvements to better target poorer farmers and women, can be illustrated for the case of cassava production in Nigeria. An IFAD-supported cassava seed multiplication project was begun in 1989 with the principal objective of improving cassava yields and the output of smallholders, primarily to increase national food security in Nigeria. This was to be achieved through the accelerated development and distribution of improved pest-resistant and higher-yielding cultivars, together with the introduction of biological control measures for averting losses from the cassava mealy bug.

Appropriate technical packages for smallholders were to be developed through an on-farm adaptive research programme and extension services were to be reorganized. The project also was designed to remove constraints in cassava processing, an activity traditionally performed by women.

The project is widely credited with facilitating a rapid expansion of cassava production in Nigeria during the late eighties and early nineties, when food import restrictions and declining incomes shifted demand strongly towards domestically produced staples. The project’s multiplication of improved seeds was key for this success and averted significant food price increases that would have had detrimental effects for poor consumers. While the project was highly successful from a national food-security perspective, there is little information on the adoption of the improved varieties by farmers of different farm sizes, incomes or genders. While the project did not directly target poorer farmers, the inference was strong that it had a favourable effect on this group, as cassava is particularly important in small farms and in areas with lower soil productivity – areas often inhabited by poorer farmers.

Yet, a diagnostic survey by a 1993 IFAD evaluation suggested that farmers without marketable cassava surplus, which includes the poorest third of all rural households, may have benefited the least from the project.

Improved varieties were not sufficiently suited to the constraints of this target group, in particular their food preferences their ability to intercrop, store and process the crop and their limited access to mineral fertilizer. Future crop research would have to address better those farmers’ priorities and constraints. From an HFS and nutrition perspective, plant breeding would have to pay more attention to varieties that responded better to conditions of low soil fertility and to intercropping systems. This appears particularly important as mineral fertilizer is not readily available or accessible in Nigeria, particularly to smaller farmers and women. Second, for dietary reasons, more research would be needed on cassava-based intercropping systems with nutritious legumes or tree crops, such as soybeans or oil-palms. The capacity of different varieties for storage in the ground would be another important aspect in order for a project to have maximum impact on food security.

As far as women beneficiaries are concerned, their special conditions as producers and processors of cassava would need more attention, with more women extension specialists available to familiarize female farmers with new varieties. Raising awareness of improved utilization practices of cassava to avoid inherent cyanide risks is another activity that should be emphasized from a nutrition perspective. Also, unless the project supports appropriate cassava processing technologies to be utilized by women or women’s groups, and the relevant training and credit, shifts from manual to mechanical processing as promoted by the project may imply a potential decline in the relative employment and earnings of women.