CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Cocoyam (colocasia spp and xanthosoma spp) is grown in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world particularly in Africa for human nutrition, animal feed, and cash income for both farmers and traders (Onwueme and Chales, 1994). Cocoyam is vegetative propagated using the corms and to a lesser extent the cormels. As food for human consumption, the nutritional value parts of cocoyam is primarily caloric (Davis et al, 1992). The underground cormels provides easily digested starch; and the leaves are nutritious spinach like vegetable, which give a lot of minerals, vitamins and thiamine (Tambong et al, 1997).
There are two major types commonly grown in Nigeria namely; colocasia spp and xanthosma spp. In Nigeria, it is regarded as a major crop especially in X2 female headed household. Nigeria is one of the largest producers of cocoyam in the world contributing about 40% of total annual production okinpshectares of land out of the total arable land of 27,900.00 hectares under cocoyam production.
Cocoyam grows in association with other food and tree crops a system mostly practiced by subsistence farmers in Nigeria. The bulk of the production of cocoyam is in South East, Nigeria (Enyinnia, 2001). Cocoyam  is regarded as a major food crop in Nigeria especially in female headed households. Nwabuzor (2001) noted that cocoyam can be consumed in various forms when boiled, fried, pounded or roasted. It can also be processed into chips (“achicha”) which has a long shelf and provides food all year round especially during lean planting season (Asadu, 2006). Cocoyam leaves are also used as vegetable for preparing soup in various part of the world. There is a decline in the yields of cocoyam on the past few years. As population pressure on land continues to increases, the importance of cocoyam in ensuring household food security is given adequate recognition even through the present yield are still below expectation. This could be attributed to a lot of factors such as climate variation, drought, poor cultural practices among cocoyam growers, pest and diseases infestation (Ezenwu, 2010).
Despite the usefulness of cocoyam corms and leaves in human nutrition, its production and processing in Nigeria is faced with a lot of challenges. Some of these challenges are the alarming rate of land degradation and lack of improved varieties for commercial cocoyam and leaf production. Decreasing rainfall and poor soil have also been identified as some of the challenges processing of cocoyam in Nigeria (Osagoe, 2006). Therefore, this study was carried out with the broad objective of ascertaining strategies for improving cocoyam production and processing among women farmers in Edo State, Nigeria.