Cocoyam is a traditional crop and a cultural foodstuff in Nigeria. It
has not received much research attention in spite of its great
adaptability to varying farming systems and its nutritive and
commercial food values. The crop is a yam substitute that occupies an
inferior food status in the study area. It is mainly cultivated by
women and in most cases planted as an intercrop in a previously
established farm. It is, therefore, regarded as a lazy man’s crop
and consequently a poor man’s food. The aim of this study was to
revive the acceptability of cocoyam as foodstuff in order to solve the
food crisis, which Nigeria has been experiencing since 1978. A
structured interview schedule was used to obtain information from
randomly selected 322 respondents from 24 cocoyam producing communities
in four states in the region: Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun and Lagos states. The
question items included personal and socio-economic characteristics of
respondents and cocoyam utilization. The data were described using
frequency counts, means and percentages while multiple regression
analysis was used as inferential statistics to determine the
relationship of the independent variables to the dependent variable.
Results revealed that 64% of the respondents were males and 84% were
married. Their ages ranged from 20-70 years with a mean of 44±16
years. About 68% of them were literate with 58% of their spouses
literate. They were mostly (39%) farmers and artisans (12%) with no
secondary occupation, only 28% of the farmers produced cocoyam but
almost all (97%) of the respondents consumed cocoyam. Cocoyam was
utilized in 24 different ways in three categories of unprocessed solid,
processed solid and powder in the study area and utilization level was
20%. The multiple regression analysis was significant at p< 0.05 and
R=0.3469, meaning that the independent variable:socio-economic
characteristics had jointly accounted for 35% of cocoyam utilization
level. F value was 5.334. The variables that contributed positively to
utilization level were producers of cocoyam, sources of cocoyam and
cocoyam being brought home from journey while cosmopolitan, flexibility
on food choice and decision makers on menu contributed negatively.
Commercial processing of cocoyam to flour for baking, canned foods,
baby food formulae and other cocoyam products are recommended to
increase utilization. Farmers were advised to increase cocoyam
production in the study area