Thailand – Cassava and biofuel: the new magic

When people hear about “mansampalang” or “tapioca” they usually think of poor Isaan farmers who are unable to grow anything better on their parched sandy soil. In fact, those poor farmers may not be so poor in the future thanks to the “Green Cassava Revolution” that is currently sweeping most Southeast Asian countries.

Presently there is only one ethanol factory in the country using cassava as its raw material and producing about 80,000 litres per day. However, two additional factories are ready to start operation and another 12 factories should be completed by the end of 2008, producing a total of 3.4 million litres of ethanol per day.
This will require an additional six million tonnes of fresh roots, on top of the 25 million tonnes currently being produced. Since the cassava growing area of about seven million rai cannot increase substantially due to competition from other crops, the increased supply can only be met through increases in yield, from the current 3.5 tonnes per rai to about 4.5 tonnes per rai in the next couple of years. How can this be achieved?

Thailand currently has the second highest cassava yield after India and nearly double the average yield in the world. The rapid increase in the country’s cassava yield was achieved through the hard work and excellent collaboration among the Agriculture Department, the Agriculture Extension Department and Kasetsart University as well as with the private processing and trading sector and the Thai Tapioca Development Institute.

So what does the future hold for cassava in Asia? In many countries the increasing demand for cassava roots can only be satisfied through marked increases in yield. This will require renewed efforts in breeding, agronomy, biotechnology and improvements in processing technologies, coupled with a dynamic and effective extension programme using a farmer participatory approach. Even though cassava is the third most important food crop in Southeast Asia after rice and maize, it has always been considered as an “orphan crop”, with little funding allocated for research of the crop.

The Nation (Thailand)