For many years, cassava peels were considered waste and an environmental nuisance in rural communities.

However, the situation is changing thanks to innovation and entrepreneurship to turn the waste into revenues.

Cassava is a major staple crop in Rwanda as a source of calories and income for rural households and over 200,000 hectares are used for cassava growing in the country.

Besides household consumption, cassava is processed into various products to supply urban areas.

Such consumption of cassava generates a significant quantity of peels as cassava peels make 20 per cent of harvested cassava tubers meaning that when farmers reject peels as waste they lose a lot.

Akanoze Nyamiyaga Ltd, a small cassava processing firm located in the Kamonyi District is changing the narrative about cassava waste by turning it into revenue.

Founded in 2018, and owned by Alice Nyirasagamba, her business is processing cassava into flour for cooking and baking.

The female entrepreneur, following exposure to the High-Quality Cassava Peel (HQCP) technology developed by agricultural research, added a processing unit to the existing business to produce and sell HQCP mash to poultry farmers.

High Quality Cassava Peel (HQCP) mash is a perfect animal feed ingredient in cassava-producing countries.

"We use between 12 and 15 tonnes of fresh cassava daily in the first processing unit, and waste generated is processed into animal feed ingredients in the new unit constructed,” she said.

The firm also relies on cassava farmers and cooperatives to secure raw materials for the HQCP unit.

"We started buying 500 Kilogrammes of peels from farmers per day but today we are buying about four tonnes of them per day. We have a machine that turns the peels into livestock feed livestock species namely poultry, cows, pigs, goats and others,” she said.

She said the feeds can be fed to livestock without any other blending or can be mixed with other animal feeds to feed animals, she said adding the feed prices ranges between Rwf150 and Rwf250.

"I am building another Rwf 70 million processing unit from revenues from turning peels into livestock feed. As an estimation, I have already generated about Rwf25 million. I am also expanding the operating place,” she said.

The new processing unit employs eight casual staff; five men and three women.

Nyirasagamba said that she got technical and financial support from the Rural-Urban Nexus (RUNRES) project funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation to be able to improve the innovative project idea that cost Rwf60 million to buy processing machines during Covid-19 times in 2020.

The project is implemented by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH Zurich), and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

Business opportunity for suppliers

Jean-Paul Mugenzi, is one of the suppliers of cassava peels who aggregates the ‘’waste’’ from households and farmer cooperatives to supply the firm.

He said he supplies between 450Kg and 500Kg of cassava peels to the company every day, depending on their availability.

"I buy one kilogram of fresh cassava peels at Rwf7, and sell it to the production company, Akanoze, at Rwf10. This is a very productive business that benefits both farmers and myself,” he said.

Empowering women

As a cash crop, men are the ones who practice most of the farming activities, such as cultivating, harvesting, and marketing cassava production.

However, the entrepreneur, who is also a member of sector council and vice chairperson of industry cluster Private sector federation at provincial level, said that this innovation is changing this status quo by giving equal opportunities for the value chain to benefit both women and men.

Men do the heavy work of carrying the cassava peels, grating, and transportation, while women do the peeling and packaging of the cassava roots, flour, and animal feed ingredient after production.

"I am also employing 65 women, as casual workers, in handling the peels and seven men in the whole chain,” Nyirasagamba said.

Access to market

The entrepreneur currently supplies HQCP mash, the animal feed ingredient, to 12 wholesalers, per request, who organize the distribution to various small businesses.

"This initiative benefits the entire value chain from the cassava peels suppliers to end-users of the animal feed ingredient. On top of being the source of income, this initiative is another kind of business that most of us were unaware of,” she noted.

Nyirasagamba reiterates: "we were trained on dewatering, which we did not know, yet it is a critical step in the animal feed production. This is a new technology. Some colleagues are interested in knowing how we do it”.

One farmer, from the Mugina sector, started to use the feed six months ago.

He buys 800 Kilogrammes at Rwf 250 per month.

"Milk production has increased from three litres to seven litres,” he said.

Another farmer reiterated that animal feed from cassava has increased milk production.

"I mix both fodder and the livestock feed from cassava to feed my cows. Milk production has increased from five litres to 10 litres,” he said.

Promoting green economy

All activities implemented through this initiative comply with the environmental protection guidelines as part of promoting the green economy, she said.

"Our activities help protect the environment as these peels were scattered on the ground and would cause environmental degradation because some farmers used to burn them, and its smoke harms the environment and human health,” she added.

As the demand for the HQCP mash increases, the entrepreneur is facing some challenges affecting its production capacity.

 The low sunshine duration throughout the rainy seasons increases the time required to dry the mash to the appropriate level for optimum storage, she said.

"During the rainy season, I reduce the quantity of peels to avoid big losses. To overcome this challenge, we are expanding our space to enable us to dry as many peels as possible in our yard. The existing one is not sufficient for enough air to get into the peels to allow them to dry faster,” Nyirasagamba added.

Speciose Kantengwa, a researcher at International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) said that the initiative to turn agricultural waste into valuable products operates in four countries.

These include Rwanda, Ethiopia, DRC, and South Africa at a cost of approximately Rwf4 billion and about Rwf1 billion in Rwanda.

"Cassava peels are a threat to the environment in both rural and urban areas and the project seeks to address such waste accumulation by turning it into livestock feed. There is a need for such factories in every district to turn cassava waste into livestock feed. Entrepreneurs should tap into this opportunity,” she said.

A small cassava processing firm located in the Kamonyi District is changing the narrative about cassava waste by turning it into animal feed.

The entrepreneur employs 65 women, as casual workers, in handling the peels. All photos: Courtesy.