Nigeria can earn an estimated $870-billion a year from investment in cassava before the year 2020, according to a recent study of Nigeria’s agricultural policy by a consortium of scientists.
Ndoma Agbor, executive director, Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Development (CSAD), said that "the study identified cassava as a commodity with high priority for investment in four out of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria." It also identified cassava as a commodity with a comparative economic advantage in the domestic, regional and world market in the same four geopolitical zones, with estimated gross returns of over $870-billion a year before 2020."
Agbor says data from the collaborative study of cassava in Africa (COSCA) show that 70 percent of Nigerians in the rural areas eats and depend on a cassava meal at least once a day and that rural and urban communities use cassava mainly as food and also as income product. The study indicates that cassava performs five duties of an income product viz: famine reserve crop, rural food staple, cash crop for urban consumption, industrial raw materials and foreign exchange earner.
Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava with a current 49-million metric tons a year, which is grown by over 40-million farmers in the country. Cassava is fast becoming a potential engine of growth in many developing countries and exerting a powerful influence on world trade, courtesy of efforts of governments and the private sector in developing unique, value-added, cassava-based products for human consumption and industrial purposes.
The Federal Government and other agencies, (national and international) have established various programmes for the development of the cassava agribusinesses.
These include the Presidential Initiative on Cassava, the Cassava Mosaic Disease Prevention Programme (CMD), the cassava Enterprises Development Programme (CEDP), the Cassava Multiplication Programme (CMP), Root and Tuber Expansion Programme (RTEP), among others - all working in tandem to increase production and processing, and to promote willful consumption of cassava products through increased marketing opportunities.
Agbor said: "The demographic advantage we have as a nation is definitely our main strength. It is the realisation of the potential of our people in this sector that will make the Nigerian economy a top 20 within the next 13 years if harnessed early, properly and efficiently.
"It is very difficult to tell what kind of economy will emerge in Nigeria by 2020. But what is not difficult to tell is that oil cannot deliver sustained economic growth and transformation because it is too capital intensive, provides a platform for rent-seeking and it is highly subject to severe oscillations in the world market.
"However, we should take advantage of its rising prices and profile to begin to build other sub sectors, especially agriculture, and indeed cassava. This is the time to begin to put structures in place to increase cassava production, multiply processing centres and activities, expand cassava utilisation products and create export markets for the various cassava derivatives.
"Since we all agree that agriculture and indeed cassava can trigger and leapfrog faster growth of the economy to stand the chance of becoming top 20 by 2020, we must begin to expand our production, processing, utilisation and export market as fast as we can," he said.
Industry sources believe Nigeria is yet to fully harness the socio-economic potentials of cassava that would translate to higher ranking of cassava next to petroleum as a major contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The presidential initiative introduced by the Obasanjo regime set in motion the process of achieving a yearly income of N625-billion ($5-billion) from export of cassava between three and five years.
The need to diversify and expand the alternative uses of cassava such as production of ethanol, starch, and livestock feed and household flour said to be necessary so as to realise the benefits derivable from domestic markets and as raw materials for industry. It is believed also that it will create opportunities for income generation for the rural populace.
Business Day Nigeria
To ease your site search, article categories are at bottom of page.
