Introduction

1. Manihot esculenta, commonly called cassava , manioc, yuca, or tapioca is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil and parts of the Andes.

2.Cassava is the third-largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after rice and maize.

3. Cassava is classified as either sweet or bitter. Like other roots and tubers, both bitter and sweet varieties of cassava contain antinutritional factors and toxins, with the bitter varieties containing much larger amounts.

4. The cassava root is long and tapered, with a firm, homogeneous flesh encased in a detachable rind, about 1 millimetre (1⁄16 inch) thick, rough and brown on the outside.

5. Wild populations of M. esculenta subspecies flabellifolia, shown to be the progenitor of domesticated cassava, are centered in west-central Brazil, where it was likely first domesticated no more than 10,000 years ago.