Cassava is a major staple in Ghana with economic value for many people both in rural and urban areas. The commodity is scarce nationwide on the open market; difficult to come by lately.

It is not because production has dwindled but rather due to other uses of the crop discovered by businesses and industries.

But while some individuals and business entities are feeling the heat of the scarcity, others are cashing in on the situation.

Auntie Felicia has for over ten years operated a chop bar at Abbey’s Park at Ash-town, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti region.

She operates the most popular fufu joint in the vicinity.

Auntie Felicia has been compelled by the unavailability of cassava to suspend work because she in unable to serve her fufu-eating patrons.

The unfavourable weather resulting in a change in rainfall pattern have often been fingered as a cause of the situation as echoed by Kwabena Danso, the 38-year-old farmer at Kwaso in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality.

He owns a 16-acre cassava farm at Kwaso in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality of the Ashanti Region.

Kwabena explains the weather at this time of the year renders cassava unsuitable for fufu, in particular, as the rains set in after a bush fire had swept through farms.

The situation, however, is not entirely bad for everybody, after all, because of cassava’s multiple uses.

Some businesses in the value chain are therefore making money from what others will discard.

Thirty-four-year-old Yaa Ako sells dried cassava chips known as ‘Konkonte’ used to prepare another popular Ghanaian dish made from cassava flour.

Call it ‘lapewa’ or ‘face the wall’’, or brown fufu , and you are referring to the same thing.

All-weather, cassava, no matter its state, is chopped into chips, dried and ground into flour for a preparation of Konkonte.

Yaa Ako is now selling between Gh¢300 and Gh¢350 Ghana cedis a day which previously she sold only Gh¢80 a day and showed me a space of single room which is empty of stock.

Auntie Felicia, for instance, has diverted to preparing and selling cooked ‘konkonte’, after giving up on fufu.

Scientists explain cassava has graduated into an industrial crop used for making plywood, paperboard and beverages.

Dr Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, the Deputy Minister for Agriculture -In-Charge of Crops, revealed at a recent workshop on root and tubers that breweries currently source estimated 85 percent of the cassava as a major raw material.

Patrick Okyere is CEO of Food Hub Company Limited, processors of cassava into medium and high-quality chips for both starch producers and breweries.

Averagely the company processes about 8 tonnes the crop daily.

When processed and dried, they get between 2.5 and 3 tonnes of dried medium quality cassava chips from the 8 tonnes.

“Our price sells between GH¢40 and GH¢50 per bag. From 3 tonnes of dry chips you can get about 60 bags, so assuming it's even 40 Ghana Cedis then we get GH¢2400 every day, which is not bad”, he revealed.

A bag of cassava last year stood at 60 Ghana Cedis but now it goes for GH¢150.

With this development, farmers who have often complained about low or no market for their produce over the years now have something to laugh about.

Their wish, however, is to have direct contact with the industrial users.

“It has so much boosted my moral and its becoming encouraging” retorted Samuel Angor, a cassava farmer in the Upper-Manya Krobo District of the Eastern Region.

He owns about 12 acres of cassava plantation.

Mr Angor leads a co-operative group of over 500 farmers pushing for a deal industry for production and supply of the commodity.

“We are beginning to realise that cassava is beginning to be competitive with cocoa it will become a major export earner. The entry barriers are not as much as other products when it comes to production”.

According to him, Government must focus on the crop and empower the smallholder farmers so that they could go into bigger production.

On their own, they are going into about 5000 hectares of production bringing a number of farmers on board.

He reveals the co-operative is partnering some institutions to introduce business plans and expertise to help farmers link up and have direct access to industry.