Manufacturers of food ingredients and additives are searching for new "natural" compounds that satisfy the technical and economic constraints of production. The starches currently available on the world market come mainly from maize, wheat potato and cassava. The present study was conducted to assess the industrial potential of native starches obtained from the tubers of different yams currently grown in Côte d'Ivoire. The functional properties under technological stress conditions (high temperature, refrigeration, freezing, acid treatment shearing) of the native starch pastes and gels from 5 species of yam tubers (D. alata, D. cayenensis, D. dumetorum, D. esculenta, D. rotundata) were studied and compared with those of industrial starches, Le., native maize and potato starch and 2 commercial starches with good processing resistance, Le., Colflo 67 (chemically modified maize starch) and Novation 2300 (physically modified waxy maize starch). The yam starches were extracted from tubers obtained from the experimental farm of Abidjan University, Côte d'Ivoire.