Attempts by National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, Nigeria to add value to cassava have led to development of several products such as cake, bread, chin-chin from cassava in order to diversify its utilization.. The Institute embarked upon a rural empowerment campaign through promotion, popularization and training of rural households on the cassava value addition technologies. About 10 rural communities in Abia State, Nigeria have benefited from this participatory training programme. A study was carried out in 2006 in Abia State to examine the effects of the training programme on the livelihoods of the rural households in the study area. A total of 150 respondents from four Local Government Areas where the training workshops held were purposively sampled for the study. Data were collected with use of structured questionnaire and analyzed using means, percentages, tables and frequencies. Results indicated that use of acquired knowledge on cassava value addition has high influence on farmers' livelihoods in Arochukwu (3.02), but moderate influences on their livelihoods in Umunneochi(2.01), Umuahia(1.9) and Ukwa East(1.7) LGAs as evidenced by availability of different cassava food forms, earning of extra incomes, self employment, as well as poverty reduction in the house holds. There is therefore the need to explore and sustain this rural empowerment strategy by providing the necessary policy leverage and support that will facilitate efforts and activities of government agencies to enhance the livelihoods of rural farmers.
A field trial was conducted for 2 years to determine cropping system effect on yield of some sweetpotato and okra cultivars in an intercropping system. Sweetpotato variety TIS 87/0087 produced significantly (P<0.05) higher number of tubers per plant than Tis 8164 and Tis 2532.op.1.13 varieties. Tuber yield was also significant in 2000, but was not in 2001. Intercropping generally increased okra plant height while interaction of okra with sweetpotato and cropping system showed significant differences in pod length and pod width. The land equivalent ratio of sweetpotato and okra cultivar were all above 1.0 indicating that higher productivity per unit area was achieved by growing the two crops together than growing them separately.
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