Little cassava is traded internationally to or from the Americas. Curiously, most of the current trade is based on export of fresh roots from Costa Rica, overall a minor cassava producer in the region. The market for fresh cassava in North America has grown steadily parallel with rapid increase in populations of Latin American origin. Costa Rica exported 45,000 tons in 1995, nearly triple the volume of 1990. Constraints and Opportunities for System Improvement Cassava has attained its current level of production and utilization as a consequence of many forces that ultimately impact farmers' decisions of how much to grow, and the market demand for cassava and its products.
Development based on cassava is tied to an array of constraints and opportunities.
Among the most influential of these are agriculture and trade policies, urbanization, income and related changes in food demand, characteristics of the resource base for production, trends in commodities that compete with cassava as an energy source, institutional resources for crop and market development, and technology for production and post-harvest management. A number of forces in the external political and socio-economic environments impact the cassava sector Agriculture and trade policy, especially related to alternative energy sources Urbanization Broad income growth across the region Land tenure systems and trends Infrastructure for accessing production inputs and markets By the 1970s, urbanization and overall economic development had substantially changed the social, economic and political landscape in the Americas . Food preferences shifted in favor of more convenient foods, away from basic staples, and toward more diversified diets. The perishability of fresh cassava adds a high margin to urban market prices, and makes it a comparatively expensive food. Attempts to constrain the rise in food prices for an increasingly urbanized society led to subsidies, especially on wheat imports and locally-produced coarse grains.