How to product cassava flour

How to product cassava flour

The production of elubo and fufu is basically the same to a stage in the processing of cassava. These two food items are common staple food in Nigeria. Lafun originate from Egba land in Ogun State, The origin of fufu is Ibo Land where it is popularly called Akpu. The two have become popular in the western states of Nigeria.
To the best of my knowledge these two food items are the most lucrative products of cassava, superseded only by cassava flour for baking, which we have discussed earlier.

Step 1 Harvest the cassava from the farm and carry it to the processing shed.
Step 2 Peel the cassava.
Step 3 Wash the cassava and soak in water for three days for fermentation to take place. The soaking should not exceed 4 days. By this time the cassava should be soft and marshy.
Step 4 If the cassava is meant for elubo, this stage is for drying. Pack the cassava in one sac and tie the sac. Use press, [hydraulic or screw] or load heavy stones on the cassava to press water out, so that it will dry quickly. After squeezing the water out spread the cassava on clean slab or polythene sheets. The villages that produces elubo in bulk are naturally endowed with rock on which they carry out the drying. When the elubo is completely dry pack it in sac and send to the market. It is ready for sale.
For fufu the next step is to remove the cassava from the fermentation tank, wash carefully, and put in a clean bowl. Get another big bowl half filled with water and a strong plastic filter. Start to filter the fufu into the clean bowl of water. After filtering, throw away the fibrous residue or feed it to goats. Allow the filtrate to settle and drain the water away. Bag the fufu and send to market. The standard bag for fufu in market is 25 kg poultry feed sac or 25 kg sac of Tempo detergent. That is all about how to produce elubo and fufu, let us see the cost analysis and compare the profitability.

Cost Analysis
Three tons truck of cassava is sold for N60,000
Cost of peeling N3,000
Cost of fetching water N300
Cost of filtering N1,000
Miscellaneous expenses N2,000
Total N66,300

We will agree that the expenses for both elubo and fufu are the same. Where we incur expenses to filter fufu the same cost goes for drying elubo.
The three tons truck of cassava will produce 55 bags of fufu Tempo bags. The same will produce 16 bags of elubo baggco 100 kg bags.
Currently a bag of fufu is 1500 Naira at Ifo market and 2000 Naira at Lusada market. Total sales of fufu at Ifo market is 82500 Naira. At Lusada market the sales is 110000 Naira. A bag of elubo is 4500 Naira at Ifo market and 5000 Naira at Lusada market. Total sales 72000 Naira at Ifo and 80000 Naira at lusada.

Now let us compare the profitability. From the data above we can see that fufu is more profitable than lafun. The labor required to filter fufu is also lower than the labor required to dry lafun. The price of both products is better at Lusada market and Agbara market than Ifo. This is because the two markets are nearer to the boundary market at Ajegunle the major terminal market of the two products.

Next we will consider the production of cassava starch the staple food of Urohobos ,Ishans Itshekiris. And GARI the general food of all southern Nigerians.