Cassava: Stocks
Why farmers leave roots in the soil as famine insurance
What this tab covers How much is left and how much is held. For minerals and energy: reserves, current output, years of supply and recycling for the top five countries. For farm commodities: production, ending stocks and stocks-to-use for the top five producers (USDA, October 2026). It also covers inventories and stockpiles.Recycling
No recycling. Fresh roots cannot be stored, so stocks are held as dried chips and starch by Thai and Chinese traders; Thailand has at times run government chip and starch stockholding schemes. Farmers store cassava by leaving roots in the ground. India has no buffer policy for cassava.
Fresh roots cannot be stored, so stocks take other forms. Farmers leave roots in the ground as a famine reserve and dig them as needed. Dried chips, flour and starch keep for months. There is no public world inventory reporting of the kind WASDE provides for grains. Chinese buyers hold chip stocks for ethanol and feed plants, and their buying swings with maize prices, since cassava competes with maize as a source of starch and energy.