Evaluation of the Underutilized Agro-morphologic features of Aroids for improved Food Security, Nutrition, and Economic Development

Aroids or Cocoyam are often referred to as "women's crops" because women dominate the value chain. Women are primarily responsible for producing, processing, and sales of this root plant, while ensuring a year-round supply. Aroids, i.e. taro (Colocasia esculenta) and tannia (Xanthosoma sagittifolium) are underutilized root crops in the tropical and subtropical regions of developing nations. In Nigeria, there is abundance of Aroids. It can be boiled, fried, steamed, or roasted, pounded to produce a paste for porridge thickening, dried to make flour, sliced and fried to make chips, and prepared in a variety of other ways. A variety of local foods utilizes aroids. The investigated physiochemical properties of Xanthosoma sagittifolium and Colocassia esculenta include length, width, thickness, geometric mean diameter ,sphericity),mass, volume, density, moisture content, porosity, and angle of repose. The development of machinery for the harvesting, storage, and processing of aroids requires adequate knowledge of their agro- morphologic features. Key words: root crop, marginal resource, storage equipment, post-harvest condition, food processing, Xanthosoma sagittifolium, Colocassia Esculenta.