Abstract:
Cassava (Manihot esculenta L.) plays a crucial role in the people's diet as a staple food crop and source of income to many livelihoods. It is usually consumed in its fresh, cooked form or transformed into dry chips and flour so as to increase its shelf life. However, realizing its full potential is hindered during the post-harvest handling phase. This study therefore assessed the perceived effect of post-harvest handling on quality and marketability of dried cassava chips among farmers in Arapai sub-county, Soroti district. Specifically, it was designed to achieve the following objectives; i) To assess the post-harvest handling practices and technologies used by the cassava farmers. ii) To assess the desirable and undesirable quality attributes of the dried cassava chips among the farmers. iii) To assess the perceived effects of the quality attributes on marketability of the dried cassava chips among farmers. Data was collected through quantitative approaches of 78 cassava producers. Analysis was done using SPSS and Excel. Results showed that most respondents were aged between 16 and 70 years, with more females (55.1%) than the males (46.2%). Most of the respondents were household heads (46.2%), with some spouses (25.6%), children and parents. Some respondents had attained tertiary level of education (42.3%) indicating moderate level of literacy in the study population however, 32.1% were peasants. The married were 61.5% and majority were Catholics (42.3%). Household monthly income ranged from UGX 106,000 to UGX 176,000 and their annual income was between UGX 210,000 and UGX 21,120,000 from at least three income sources monthly, quarterly and annually. Most of the farmers cultivated NAROCASS (50%) cassava variety for both food and income (83.3 %).
Farmers practiced at least four post-harvest handling practices like peeling (100%), washing (96.2%), grating (94.4%) and fermenting (62.8%). All cassava farmers depended on the sun for drying their cassava tubers (100%) commonly on the bare ground (28.2%) and empty sacks (19.2%). Majority of respondents strongly agreed that moldiness (4.5) and cleanliness (4.1) highly affect the marketability of dry cassava chips. Therefore, the study recommended that farmers should be trained on the different post-harvest handling practices and there importance on chips quality and marketability while being supported with improved equipment and sensitized on the different cassava varieties to grow and their importance so as to obtain products that suits the market.
