Harvesting and Processing of Cocoyam

Hello Hivers,

A few days ago, I made a post on my Cocoyam Harvest . Right now, my house is full of harvested cocoyam. That's because I'm consistently harvesting it to finish it since it is decaying in the farm, and it is a big loss because cocoyam is quite expensive in the market, especially in Anambra State, which depends on it as a major source of thickener. Harvesting the cocoyam was not really easy, but I'm very happy that I got plenty of it.

Alongside the cocoyam, I also got bananas from my farm. I was quite lucky to find the bananas because passers-by have often cut them on many occasions.

Nothing is easy when it comes to food cultivation, harvesting, and processing. It doesn't end with harvesting the cocoyam. If it is left unprocessed, I would eventually end up facing what I'm trying to avoid, which is the decaying of the cocoyam.

To avoid this, I need to remove the cocoyam from the sack bag to prevent heating, which will lead to spoilage.

Now, I have to select some cocoyams and keep them for the next cultivating season. These selected cocoyams are kept separately, spread in a cool, dry place. The rest of the cocoyam was peeled.

Guys, this is where the whole work lies. Peeling the cocoyam was even tougher than peeling cassava. My thumb is paining me a lot right now. The cocoyam was round, smaller to hold, and I was also trying not to cut away too much cocoyam in the process of peeling.

Thank goodness, I was able to peel a reasonable amount before it got dark. At this point, I have to slice the peeled cocoyam into smaller sizes. This makes it easier to dry within a few days. After slicing the cocoyam, it was spread on a dry surface under direct sunlight.

This is the time I love harmattan because I wouldn't bother myself with taking the sliced cocoyam in and out to prevent it from rain. It was placed on a higher surface, out of the reach of livestock.

In my next post, I will write about how the dried cocoyam is ground into powdered form — that is cocoyam flour.

Thanks for reading 💕

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