1.0 Introduction
Cassava was known to the world before the discovery of America. The Portuguese settlers found the native Indian's in Brazil growing the cassava plant and Pierre Marty wrote in 1490 that the poisonous roots of a “Yucca” were used in the preparation of bread. Cassava were introduced to the Westerner const of Africa in the sixteenth centuries while the word topioca derived from tapioca. The tipi Indian's name the liquid which is extracted from the tubers and made into pellets called tipicoet. The edible tubers, which serves as food in many tropical countries as well as source of starch, it also serves as principal food for workers in minning and industrial centers in most countries too.
Cassava is a single species, manihot esculent crante (synonymous with mainhot utilissmapolhe) it is a tuberous dicotyledous plant, belonging to the botanical family of Euphorbiacca, and like most other members of that family. The cassava plant contain latifiers and produces latex. The cassava tuber contains and mainly water and carbohydrate with waters having a greater proportion and a small significant amount of cyanogenic glucoside (prussic acid) of all the constituents of cassava tubers. Two major factors limits its utilization. in the form of the fresh (unprocessed) tuber. The first is that the unprocessed tuber has relatively high amount of prussic acid, which is highly poisonous to human and animal when consumed. The second factor is that fresh cassava tubers cannot be stored more than a few days after harvest. The tuber begins to deteriorate rapidly as a result of enzymatic process in the presence of water contained in the tuber.
It is an important food crop in tropical countries such as Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia and Thailand. The roots of the cassava are rich in starch and are consumed as human food or animal feed. Small amount of it's root are converted into industrial products. Today Thailand are the world leaders of starch production from cassava.
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