Cassava

Cassava’s story begins in the southwestern Amazon Basin, where Indigenous cultivators domesticated it from wild relatives of Manihot esculenta. Genetic evidence points especially to wild populations in present-day Brazil, near the Bolivian border. Rather than having a broad Old World origin, the cultivated root is distinctly South American.

Long before European contact, farmers carried cassava through tropical South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. They developed many varieties suited to different soils, climates, and food traditions. Some are described as “sweet” and others as “bitter,” reflecting differences in cyanogenic compounds. Both require appropriate preparation, while higher-cyanide varieties demand especially thorough grating, soaking, fermenting, pressing, drying, or cooking.

Portuguese traders introduced cassava to Africa during the sixteenth century, and it later spread through tropical Asia. Its ability to produce starchy roots in poor soils, tolerate periods of drought, and remain underground until needed made it valuable to farmers facing uncertain rainfall or harvest schedules. In Africa it became especially important, yielding foods such as gari, fufu, and fermented pastes; in Southeast Asia it also developed into a major starch and animal-feed crop.

Today Nigeria is the largest producer, while Thailand is a leading exporter of cassava products. The root supplies food for hundreds of millions of people, and its processed starch appears in tapioca, baked goods, sweeteners, paper, textiles, and other industrial products. Its global fame belongs to many cuisines, but its biological and agricultural beginnings remain rooted in Amazonia.