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<\/a>Beyond the glittering coastline of what was once known as the Gold Coast, Ghana\u2019s shrublands and rich forested hills are split by forking rivers that reach inland through the country\u2019s lush tropics, into drier western Africa. In the past 40 years, seven major droughts have battered the people of Africa \u2013 with the most significant and devastating occurring in the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa in the early 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n<\/a>But despite the massive social disruption and human suffering that these droughts cause, life goes on. In south-eastern Ghana and in Togo, the three-million-plus people who speak the Ewe language have a word for this. It is agbeli<\/em>: \u2018There is life\u2019. It is no coincidence that this word is also their name for a tropical and subtropical crop that survives through the worst times to feed Africa\u2019s families: cassava.<\/p>\n Cassava is a lifeline for African people, and is a particularly important staple food for poorer farmers. More cassava is produced in Africa than any other crop, and it is grown by nearly every farming family in sub-Saharan Africa, supplying about a third of the region\u2019s daily energy intake. In the centuries since Portuguese traders introduced this Amazonian plant to Africa, cassava has flourished, yielding up to 40 tonnes per hectare.<\/p>\n Hear more on just why cassava is so important to food security<\/em> from Emmanuel Okogbenin, of Nigeria\u2019s National Root Crops Research Institute, in the video below (or watch on Youtube<\/a>):<\/em><\/p>\n