Table 4.

OVERALL CASSAVA TRAIT FREQUENCIES. Frequencies with which cassava traits are mentioned by cassava farmers in the study sites in the Southwest and Southeast of Nigeria. Traits are listed according to the frequency (from high to low) with which they were mentioned across regions. Data are then dis-aggregated by sex. For the dissagregation into regions only the traits that show significant differences between men and women are shown. Differences in frequencies between the sexes are tested for using Chi-square test.

Traits	Frequencies (%)			P-value
Overall	All respondents	Women	Men
high yield	73.3	72.2	74.4	ns
root size	60.0	68.1	52.6	0.053
early maturing	55.3	54.2	56.4	ns
dry matter content/swells	42.7	43.1	42.3	ns
cooking / processing quality +	40.0	48.6	32.1	0.039*
flesh color	38.0	31.9	43.6	ns
post harvest shelf life	38.0	38.9	37.2	ns
poundability	37.3	34.7	39.7	ns
fast cooking	32.0	29.2	34.6	ns
good price/marketability	29.3	26.4	32.1	ns
agronomic characteristics++	26.0	18.1	33.3	0.033*
taste	24.7	30.6	19.2	ns
resistance to pest and diseases	20.7	18.1	23.1	ns
adaptation to extreme weather condition	10.0	9.7	10.3	ns
labor requirement	4.7	5.6	3.8	ns
Southwest
flesh color	30	19	39	0.023*
good price/marketability	22	14	28	0.050
agronomic characteristic++	20	8	30	0.003**
Southeast
Fast cooking	13	25	0	0.047*

^**p value<0.01, ^*p-value<0.05, ns = not significant

+This group represents: “Easiness and suitability to make the food products gari, fufu and lafun” (64%) and “Products made from it swell and draw and mold fine” (18%). Others are “It ‘fills’ the stomach when eaten and fufu and gari made from it draws” (6%), “Gari made from it is appealing” (6%) “Roots after processing are not watery” (3%), “It is easy to process” (1%), “It is soft when boiled” (1%), “It does not have a smell when fermented (1%),

++This group represents “weed suppression and good canopy formation” (80%,) others are “beautiful, appealing in the field” (16%), “likes waterish areas” (2%), “stems can be stored for long” (2%)