By Peter Samuel
An agricultural researcher with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Ebonyi State, South East Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Ogbuinya, has said that regular consumption of cassava helps prevent osteoporosis.
He explained that osteoporosis is a bone disease that developed when bone minerals density and bone mass decreased, or when the quality or structure of bone changed, leading to a decrease in bone strength that could increase the risk of fractures.
He said osteoporosis was referred to as a “silent disease” because there were typically no symptoms until a bone was broken, explaining that it caused weakening and thinning of bones thereby leaving bones at greater risk of breaking.
He noted that the bones most often affected were the hips, spine and wrists, and that women were four times more likely to get osteoporosis than men because of a decrease in estrogen after menopause.
He said osteoporosis mostly affects those in developed countries because of their consistent consumption of wheat flour.
While saying that wheat is a major source of food in developed countries, he said that increased consumption of wheat flour, which naturally contained gluten, increases risk of the disease.
According to him, “There’s over concentration in the use of wheat flour in the production of confectionaries like bread, chin chin and cakes, and thatbthese products have caused some health problems, especially in the developed countries, where their major source of food is wheat flour.
“At a particular age, when one tries to walk, the bone snaps, and once the bones snaps, the bones are broken, because over consumption of the wheat flour reduces the strength of the bone, but cassava flour doesn’t have such challenge and that is what makes it amenable and good for consumption all year-round.”
The researcher, who advocated more production of cassava crops across Nigeria and globally, listed some of the advantages of planting cassava to include: high production ratio compared to maize and wheat, absence of gluten in its composition, a good source for starch intake and a better replacement for wheat flour in the preparation of confectionaries.
He said, “Most countries of the world like China have started producing cassava. Cassava is the crop of the future because of its high yield. I was in China two years back. I saw one mile of continuous planting of cassava, and you know that the Chinese come into Nigeria to cart away cassava to their own country.”
He, therefore, called on the government at all levels, including private individuals, to introduce the use of mechanised farming to enable massive production of cassava.
He however, said, “But the problem we have in Nigeria is that the production of cassava is not yet in a mechanised form, but there are technologies now that we can use in the production of cassava. In IFAD, we have tractors that can plant cassava, which is not conventional. And the tractor plants 15/20 hectares of cassava in a day.
“Let me say that manual planting of cassava cannot give you a massive harvest and yield. So, with that knowledge coming into vogue, we can increase our food production in quantity and quality. And we also have machines that can lift the cassava from the ground, but it was not so earlier on. Before now, you had to use your hands to pull out the cassava from the ground.
“There are tractors and machines we have in the office that can pull cassava from the ground, put it in the truck and then, you take it to your farm house.”
The researcher said cassava flour is what is going to be in vogue in the nearest future.
He said the starch content in cassava is high compared to wheat flour, adding that cassava crop does not contain protein unlike wheat flour that contains a little quantity of protein.
He said, “One hectare of cassava can cover what four hectares of maize can produce or what four hectares of wheat can produce. We have a type of species that will give you up to 30 to 40 tonnes, different from the 10 tonnes per hectare, that our farmers are used to. And these varieties have genetic materials incorporated in them that enable them to yield that way.
“For instance, we have the 419 cassava variety. The 419 was introduced by the National Root Crop Variety Institute, Umudike, Abia State. This variety has the capability to produce 35 tonnes per hectare, and it has high carbohydrates content of 61 percentage of the C20 and C21 content. And these are the varieties that companies that are into starch production, glucose and flour are looking for. Note that a cassava tuber might be very big, but has a low starch content and it is not ideal for the starch industry.
“The starch industry can use that to do their gum, and so on. There are other varieties that contains Vitamin A enriched cassava. This vitamin A enriched cassava content has a high Carotene con
