Freshly harvested cassava roots are highly perishable, with a shelf life of about two days if not treated or processed immediately. This causes significant losses in the cassava supply chain, leading to lower incomes for food producers and higher costs for consumers. This is particularly troubling for a country like Ghana, where cassava is a major staple crop contributing about 20.5% of the country’s agricultural GDP.
This policy brief, explores the causes of these losses and proposes solutions to mitigate them.