Cassava Production in Africa : A Panel Analysis of the Drivers and Trends

This paper examines the drivers of Africa’s rapidly increasing cassava output using panel data for 37 African countries from 1961 to 2020 and the random effects regression. It analyses the influence of average yields per hectare and area harvested on annual cassava production. Since the 1960s, Africa’s average cassava yields per hectare have been below the world’s average and those of frontline cassava-producing continents like Asia and the Americas. Nevertheless, Africa’s total cassava output has grown at an increasing rate eclipsing output gains in the other continents in the past decades. This paper finds that 95.6% of the increases in output were driven by increases in the area harvested and changes in yields per hectare accounted for only 2% of the output variation. A one-tonne increase in yields per hectare is expected to boost production by 188,952 tonnes, and a one-hectare increase in area harvested area improves production by 8.5 tonnes.This indicates a gap in translating gains made via the eradication of major cassava diseases and the introduction of new high-yield, disease, and pest-resistant varieties into smallholder cassava farming. The increasing allocation of new lands to cassava production in Africa is unsustainable in the long run. It promotes deforestation, aggravates climate change, and leads to soil erosion, flooding, droughts, soil nutrients, and biodiversity loss. Sustainable intensification of cassava production offers a pathway to boost absolute and per hectare yields and farmers’ income within current cassava lands while reducing cassava cultivation-related deforestation