Growing Cassava for Both Food and Feed

Two harvests from one field, and why it suits a mixed farm

A cassava field gives you two products and a steady presence on the plot. The roots are the part most people know, a starchy store of energy that can go into fufu, gari, chips and flour. The leaves are the part many farmers throw away, yet they contain a good amount of protein and can be dried into a green meal. A corner of cassava on a compound can feed the household and the birds, and it keeps working through the dry spell with little attention once it is established.

That is why cassava appeals to mixed farms. A small flock of layers, started from layer chicks or other stock, or a few goats can benefit from leaves picked in the mid-season, while the roots are dug for the kitchen or sold. The trade-off is that cassava takes nine to twelve months to reach root harvest for most varieties, and you must process the material carefully before any part of it goes into an animal's trough. Plan for both the crop and the processing time from the start.

If you are still deciding how to feed a flock on a tight budget, our poultry feed calculator is a good way to see how many kilograms of feed your birds will eat in a month, which is the number any cassava plan has to fit.

Sweet or bitter: the variety question before the first cutting

Cassava varieties differ in how much cyanide their roots and leaves contain. Bitter types hold more, and sweet types hold less, but sweet does not mean free of cyanide. Taste is a rough guide, because a root that tastes bitter raw usually carries more cyanide than one that tastes mild, but you cannot rely on taste alone to decide whether something is safe for an animal. Treat every variety as needing processing.

For feed purposes, choose a variety that is well known in your area and has a clear record of low cyanide. Ask your district agriculture office, the extension officers who work with cassava growers, or a reputable research station which varieties are widely released and performing well locally. Ghanaian research bodies have released several improved cassava varieties over the years, and names change as new ones are tested, so get the current list rather than relying on an old one.

Also decide what the crop is for. Some growers choose varieties for high root yield and good starch, which suits the processing market. Others choose for leaf yield and fast regrowth, which suits a feed plan. A variety that is strong on both is worth looking for, but if you can only have one, be clear about which product you need most before you buy stems.

Cuttings, planting window and the first month

Cassava is grown from stem cuttings, not from seed. Take cuttings from mature, healthy stems, usually from plants around eight to twelve months old, and cut them into lengths of about 25 to 30 centimetres, each with several nodes. Cuttings from young shoots dry out or sprout poorly. Keep the cut ends clean and plant them the same day where you can, because stems left in the sun lose vigour quickly.

The usual window is the start of the rains. In much of the Central Region that means planting around April or May, when the soil has enough moisture for the cuttings to root. Plant the stem at a slant or upright, with two or three nodes below the soil, and space the plants roughly a metre apart in rows. Check the plot after two or three weeks and replant any gaps, because a patchy stand gives a patchy crop and wastes the land.

In the first month, keep the plot free of fast-growing weeds. Cassava is slow to cover the ground, so weeds get a head start. A light hoe pass in the first few weeks is usually enough, and it is far cheaper than trying to clear a thick stand later in the season.

Mosaic and brown streak on the coast: what to scout for

Two virus diseases matter most to cassava growers in southern Ghana. Cassava mosaic disease shows as yellow-green mottling on the leaves, with distortion and reduced leaf size. Cassava brown streak disease, which is found in coastal areas, can show as brown streaks on the green stems and as brown, corky patches inside the roots at harvest. Brown streak can ruin a root crop even when the leaves look fairly healthy, so it is easy to be caught out.

Scout the field regularly, especially in the first six months. Pull out plants that show clear signs of virus, and do not take cuttings from them. If a field shows heavy virus pressure, do not replant from it. Start the next crop from stems taken from a clean plot, and ask your extension officer to inspect the source before you plant. Clean planting material is the single cheapest disease control available to a small grower.

Do not feed roots or leaves from a diseased field to animals until you have had them checked. Virus symptoms and feed safety are separate questions, and a clear-looking root can still be poorly processed. If you are not sure, ask the extension office to look at the crop with you.

Leaves as the protein share, and when to start picking them

Cassava leaves are where the crop earns its place on a livestock farm. Dried and processed leaf material contains useful protein, much more than the root does, along with fibre, minerals and some colouring compounds that can affect the colour of egg yolks. A green leaf meal can fill the protein gap in a grain-heavy ration, but only if the leaves are handled correctly. The leaf is also one of the parts that carries cyanide most strongly, so processing matters more here than anywhere else on the plant.

Many growers begin picking leaves around the fourth to sixth month, though the exact timing depends on the variety and the rains. Take the young tips and upper leaves, not the whole plant. Keep the main stems and a full canopy so the plant keeps growing and the roots still fill out. If you are choosing a laying breed to pair with a leaf-meal ration, the breeds page is a useful place to compare temperaments and output before you commit. A plant stripped bare for leaves will produce a smaller root crop at harvest, and that cost is easy to miss if you only count the leaves you collected.

How much leaf you can take before the roots suffer

There is no single rule for how much leaf to take, because it depends on the variety, the soil, the rainfall and how long you want the roots to keep growing. A sensible starting point is to take the top third of the leafy growth from a part of the plot at a time, rotating sections so the whole field does not lose its canopy at once. Look at the plants after each pick. If the stems look thin, the lower leaves yellow early, or the new growth is slow, you have taken too much.

Keep records of what you pick and when, and compare the root yield at harvest with a neighbouring plot that was not picked. That comparison is the only honest measure of whether the leaf harvest is paying its way. Many farmers find that a moderate leaf harvest costs the root crop very little, but an aggressive one can cut the root harvest sharply. Test it on a small section before you plan a full season around it.

Roots and peels: the energy share and where the risk sits

The root is the energy part of the crop. Dried cassava chips and cassava meal provide carbohydrate that birds and ruminants can use well, and they are a common partial replacement for maize in some rations. The root is low in protein, though, so it cannot carry a ration on its own. Every cassava-based feed needs a protein partner, whether that is soya, groundnut cake, fish meal or legume leaves.

The peel is a different matter. Peels generally hold more cyanide than the flesh beneath them, and they are often the part that gets carelessly fed. Do not give fresh peels to animals. Peel off the skin before any processing, and either compost the peel or process it as thoroughly as the flesh, which in practice means discarding it from the animal feed. Fresh roots also begin to deteriorate within a few days of digging, becoming discoloured and woody, so the time between digging and processing is part of the quality question. Mixed farms built around crops like this are covered in our poultry farming in Ghana pages.

Taking the poison out: peel, grate, soak and sun-dry

Processing is what makes cassava usable. The aim is to break the cells so the cyanogenic compounds can release, to let them escape or be washed out, and to dry the product thoroughly so that it does not spoil. Home processing follows the same logic as the traditional methods used for gari and fufu flour, and the steps below are the ones most growers can manage with simple equipment.

1. Peel the roots completely and discard the peel.
2. Wash the roots and grate, chop or pound them so the cell walls break open.
3. Soak or ferment the pulp in clean water for several days, changing the water as it turns, and let the cyanide escape.
4. Press out the excess water, then spread the pulp or chips thinly on a raised mesh and dry in the sun until brittle.
5. Store the dried product in a dry place, away from damp floors and rodents.

For leaves, the method is different. Pound the leaves, then boil them hard for a long time, often 30 minutes or more, and throw the cooking water away. Dry the cooked leaf thinly in the sun before grinding it. Never feed raw or lightly cooked leaves, and never let animals graze fresh cassava foliage in quantity.

Why home methods reduce cyanide but do not prove it is gone

A careful home process reduces cyanide substantially, but it does not guarantee that every batch is free of it. Taste and smell are poor indicators after drying, and a simple home check cannot tell you how much cyanide remains. Laboratory tests exist, and some research institutions and food-safety bodies can run them, but most small growers will not test every batch. That gap is why you should be cautious about inclusion rates and never assume that a dry, pale product is automatically safe.

If you are buying chips or leaf meal from someone else, ask how the product was processed and whether any testing has been done. A supplier who can explain the steps, and who keeps the chips dry and well labelled, is usually more reliable than one who simply has a low price. If you cannot get a clear answer, keep the share small, watch the animals closely and do not use the product for young birds. General questions about feed safety are also answered in our FAQ.

Feeding processed roots and leaves to birds, goats and rabbits

Processed cassava is best used as a partial replacement for maize or another energy source, with a protein supplement in the same ration. Start with low shares and move up only as you see the birds or animals doing well. Young birds, which have higher protein needs and more sensitive digestion, should get less than mature birds. The table below gives conservative starting points, which should be treated as the upper limit for a first trial rather than a target.

For mature layers and broilers, processed chips usually go in as a modest part of the energy portion, with protein balanced from other sources. Goats and rabbits can take small amounts of dried leaf meal alongside grass and their usual feed, but fresh leaves should not be the main forage. Ask a feed formulator to check the total ration before you change the mix, and use our broiler profit calculator if you want to see how feed changes affect the cost of growing birds to market. For layers, our layer egg profit calculator does the same job for egg output.

Signs of cyanide poisoning in animals, and what to do now

Cyanide poisoning can kill an animal quickly, sometimes within minutes of eating a dose of raw or poorly processed material. Watch for rapid or laboured breathing, distress, drooling, staggering, convulsions, a sudden collapse, and mucous membranes that look unusually bright red. Animals may die before anyone has time to act, which is why prevention through processing is far better than treatment. More practical notes on managing a small flock are in our blog.

If you suspect poisoning, stop feeding the material at once, remove the animals from access to the feed or the foliage, and call a qualified veterinarian immediately. Bring a sample of what the animals ate if you can. Do not try to treat the animal with home remedies, and do not wait to see whether it recovers. A vet can decide on the right emergency treatment, and speed is the single most important factor.

Harvesting on time and not letting fresh roots sit

Harvest the roots when they are mature, usually from nine months for many varieties, though this varies with the variety and the season. Dig in dry weather if you can, because wet soil makes roots muddy and harder to clean. Dig only as much as you can process in a day or two. Roots left in the heap start to deteriorate quickly, and that means lower starch, more discolouration and a higher risk of mould in the final product.

Plan the processing day before you dig. Have the grater or chopper, the soaking containers, the mesh trays and a dry storage space ready, so that the roots move straight from the ground into the process. Fresh roots that are dug and left overnight are harder to work with, and the final product is less consistent. Keep dried chips in sealed bags on a raised pallet, and check them weekly, because damp chips can grow mould even when they looked dry at packing.

A half-acre plan across the year

A half-acre cassava plot on a mixed farm can be planned in stages. At the start of the rains, prepare the ground, take clean cuttings and plant them in rows. In the first three months, keep the weeds down and replant gaps. From about the fourth month, start small leaf picks from different sections of the plot, and keep records. Around nine to twelve months, dig the roots in batches you can process, dry them thinly and store the product dry.

Build the feed plan around the timing. Dried chips and leaf meal will not arrive in a steady stream, so it helps to plan a store of processed product that covers the months when the field is between harvests. Keep the protein supplement on hand throughout the year, because cassava does not change the protein gap. Keep the whole plan simple enough that one person can run it, and expand only when the process runs cleanly from start to finish. If this plot is part of setting up a poultry farm from scratch, our how to start poultry farming in Ghana guide sets out the order of the steps.

Questions farmers ask