YAM (DIOSCOREA SPP), dear reader, you will agree with me, is very delicious especially ‘Pona’ and ‘Larebokor’ which are tastier and more aromatic than perfume rice. In the Upper West Region and some parts of the Savanna Region, the eating of seed yam (small yam tubers) boiled unpeeled, called “Wakpoluo” in Wali, is a delicacy in the afternoons after yam harvest. Apart from its role as an important staple, yam plays very significant roles in some of our ceremonies like; puberty rites. In some parts of our country, yam festivals are regularly celebrated to honour the crop.
These festivals clearly suggest the important roles yam has played in the survival of some of our ancestors, when probably the then prevailing weather conditions were not favourable for the cultivation of the crop they normally survived on.
Yam and other root and tuber crops are very resilient and various types are grown across the country, even under cocoa farms cocoyam and “Kookoase-bayere” grow well and not to mention the “Frafra potato” in the Upper East of Ghana which thrives very well under very dry conditions. Cocoyam was a food security crop for the Akans, it was the last crop left to be harvested during the lean season.
“COOKED” YAM TUBER- CONSUMER LOSES
But the current commercial system is making yam lose its popularity amid stiff competition from perfume rice, which is now very much preferred by the up-and-coming generation.
I lived at Wa during my childhood days and always followed my friends to their fathers’ farms and saw how yam was produced from the time of planting to harvesting. The harvested yam tubers were treated with tender loving care! The tubers were first spread under shady trees for their surfaces to dry and later covered with dry grass a process called curing. For temporary storage for the market, the yam tubers with dry surfaces heaped and covered with dry grass.
On market days, the tubers were carried in open basins to the market with air freely blowing around them. At the selling spots, bought tubers were heaped and covered with dry grass which did not only allowed air to blow around the tubers but also provided the tubers with a cool environment while waiting to be transported. When being conveyed to the urban markets, the floors of the transporting vehicles were covered with grass and the yam tubers were packed in layers with grass serving as cushions and insulators between them. When a vehicle was fully loaded, the top layer was covered with grass. The layers of grass allowed the free flow of air around the packed yam tuber, and served as cushions and insulators while in transit.
When you saw a vehicle loaded with yam moving, you would think it was a Savanna field on wheels!!
The yam tubers arrived at the urban markets fresh and they are packed in heaps and covered with the dry grass they came along with in transit. Yam tubers properly handled as such have a longer shelf-life even at the home of a consumer.
I am a lover of yam and I used to buy yam and store from one season to another. Some tubers even sprouted in storage and I cut the “heads” of the sprouted tubers and planted in my backyard garden.
But what are we experiencing in the yam industry now? You buy your favourite yam, apparently looking good, and send home and within a few days you pick your yam tuber to peel and it soft almost along its whole length! And you are shocked! Because when you bought it, is looked so wholesome – what a loss.
YAM “COOKING” PROCESS
Consumers are made to understand that the rotting of yam tubers in storage is the result of application of pesticides and fertilizers. But honestly, very few yam farmers can afford to buy these agrochemicals to manage their farms. They farm naturally! The soft-rot of yam tubers being experienced by both yam sellers and consumers is due to their poor handling during harvesting, after harvesting and transporting to the urban markets. Yam tubers are as delicate as they are delicious and tasty. They respire like human beings (Aquaye 1969) just that their noses are not like ours!!
They respire over their entire skin surface. When tubers are in an enclosed containers in urban centers they are being suffocated. Unlike yams, cocoyam’s are hardier and store better under similar condition even though respire like yams, provided there are no cult on the corms.
The rough handling that leaves cuts and bruises on the tubers and the warm condition under which they are transported from farms to the buying centers are the major cause of soft -rot of yam purchased by consumers. Nowadays it is common to see yam tubers heaped in the hot sun and covered with bags at the buying centers. Some tubers are even packed in sacks! Those selling along our major trunk roads leave the yam tubers displayed in the hot sun either covered with tarpaulin or polythene sheets; and the sellers sit in the shade under trees waiting for buyers, not knowing that they are sun – “cooking” the yam tubers before they get to the kitchen.
Those who buy the already sun “cooked yam tubers” conveniently pack them in the synthetic bags and lock them in their car boots. Buyers with pick-ups put bagged yam tubers in their buckets and may be covered with polythene sheet depending on the values of the other items in the buckets too.
For transportation from the major yam buying center to the urban markets the yam tubers are packed tight in the vehicles without grass layers between them. This does not allow air to flow around the tubers while in transit. And worst of all, the vehicles loaded with yam tend to be covered with tarpaulin as if they are contraband goods!!
As if the tightly packed yam tubers in transit need further cooking at the urban selling centers. The tubers are displayed in the sun in heaps of various sizes according to their values. The tubers which are displayed are packed tight in wooden structures or containers, without adequate ventilation, and for security reasons are locked tightly after the close of the day. The longer the yam tubers are stored under such conditions the shorter their shelf life become both in the market and at consumer’s home.
CHANGE IN NATIONAL FOOD POLICY
The availability of yam in our markets almost throughout the whole year under our current worsening weather conditions should tell Ghanaians that since we cannot reverse the climate change to suit the production of our grain crops such as maize, the nation should be prepared to create the conditions for the production of root and tuber crops which are very resilient and can thrive under conditions which do not favour the production of grain crops. Is it not amazing that down in the southern part of Ghana now, we are eating ‘fresh yam’ before ‘fresh corn’ – the popular “mouth organ”, which we eat to fill the hunger gap before harvest?
The climate change being drummed worldwide did not start today. It started from when man was feeling timber from Lebanon to build the temple in Jerusalem. That was when according to Bohannan (1964), the Sahara was encroached 12,000 years ago. Also, the depletion of the oceans of sperm whales by the industrial whaling has contributed to the climate change. According to Ross (2011), the sperm whale through their role in the oceanic link food chain, tend to reduce global warming.
BY Dr. Yaw Opoku Asiama