Page:Niger Delta Ecosystems- the ERA Handbook, 1998.djvu/134

The Resources of the Niger Delta: Agriculture Fufu has a similar place in the diet as Garri. The peeled and washed Cassava roots are soaked in water for a day or two until they are soft. Then they are washed and squeezed into a firm paste which is boiled and pounded to produce a substance not unlike mashed potato.

Cassava contains cyanide, which is removed during the washing and cooking processes.

Because cassava is so important in the Nigerian and West African diet a great deal of breeding research has and is being undertaken using other Manihot species.

Cassava comes from South America and was introduced to West Africa by the Portuguese, probably through Benin and Warri. While Yams may claim to be the traditional staple of the region, Cassava does well on impoverished soils and has taken over as the human population of the region has increased.

YAMS - Dioscorea spp: another tuberous root crop found throughout the Niger Delta. Large tubers develop underground nourished by the above ground vines which are trained on poles. Pounded Yams serve the diet in the same way as Garri and Fufu: they are peeled, cut and boiled, and then pounded into a stiff paste.

Not to be confused with Cocoyams.

COCOYAMS - Colacasia spp: a tuberous root crop with large leathery 'elephant's ear' leaves, which likes shady damp conditions. Often used to make Fufu.

PLANTAINS AND BANANAS - Musa spp: botanically the same plant although some types are more suitable for Plantains and others for Bananas. They are treelike herbs, the 'stem' actually being made up of a sheath of leaves which produces a single flower that becomes the bunch of fruit. Plantains are unripe and cooked as vegetables while Bananas are ripe and eaten as fruit.

Tubers: underground swellings of the stem or root, which stores carbohydrates and acts as the propagator of the plant.

Carbohydrates: giant molecules made up of smaller molecules called sugars (thus polysaccharides), widely distributed in plants and animals as structural molecules and energy storage molecules

Starch: the most common form of energy storing carbohydrate in plants.

RICE - Orysa sativa: a type of grass grown for its grains which tolerates wet conditions to an extent where it grows well in flooded conditions so long as the flowers (which produce the grains) remain above water level. High yields are obtained because the floodwater restricts the development of competing weeds. It is the most common food crop in the world and will become increasingly important in the Niger Delta.

African Rice - Orysa glaberrima: the traditional rice of Northern Nigeria and sometimes found in the South (e.g. around Oban in Cross River State in the early 1990s), but now being replaced by the higher yielding O. sativa.

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