Improving Food Security with Cocoyam Production by the Smallholder Female Farmers in Ebonyi State, Southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

A survey was carried out to ascertain the cocoyam species found, grown and used as one of the underutilized food security resources for solving food supply problems in the developing regions of Ebonyi State, Southeastern Nigeria, which has provided good nutrition to south pacific Islanders for 100s of years. Ebonyi State is an agrarian economy rich in abundant food crops with a vegetation of mixed savanna and semi-tropical forests. Six local government areas out of 13 were randomly selected for the survey from which two female smallholder farmers each were interviewed. Taro (Colocasia esculenta) and Tannia (Xanthosoma sagitifolium) were found grown in all the communities and the index of each species’ popularity and utility was shown by the percentage response of the farmers. The taro/dasheen species; ‘ede bu ji’ (100%), ‘udugu’ (75%), ‘agbakara’ (75%), ‘okoroko’ (41%) and ‘ikponyini’ (54%), whereas tannia species as ‘nkashi ndonyu’ (white fleshed) was 100% but ‘nkashi manu’ (pink fleshed) was only 25%. Basically, ‘ede bu ji’ of taro and ‘nkashi ndonyu’ of tannia were more popular, more widely grown and utilized in the area than other species. Storage is mainly underground pit lined with palm leaves and dusted with ash to prevent fungal growth or sorted and sold out-rightly for which 75% farmers agreed to. Cocoyam is rarely sole cropped but intercropped with maize, yam and cassava in a slash and burn system.

Keywords: Cocoyam species, food security resource, underutilized crop species, resource-constrained farmers