‘Nigeria to tap cassava processing technologies for 20:2020 vision’

By Seye Adeniyi- Updated: Tuesday 03-11-2009

World Bank Team leader, Dr. Lucas Akapa
(standing), speaking at the First Joint
World Bank/FGN Supervision Mission to
Oyo State Fadama Projects.THE Federal Government has said that it will harness the opportunities presented by cassava value addition technologies developed by the International Insti-tute of Tropical Agricul-ture (IITA) and partners to drive the economy and rank among the top 20 economies by the year 2020.

The move is part of that country’s strategy to di-versify its economy which is currently dominated by the oil sector.

The Minister of Com-merce and Industry, Mr. Achike Udenwa, stated this at the commissioning of a two small and me-dium scale cassava pro-cessing enterprises in Abuja, recently.

According to him, “Cassava is considered because it offers unpre-cedented opportunities that would further bro-aden the foundation for economic viability and improved competitive-ness, particularly in the non-oil revenue earn-ings.”

Both projects were funded by the Common Fund for Commodities and executed by the IITA with the Federal Ministry of Commerce as the project coordinating agency and Farm Infrastructure Founda-tion serving as a technical partner.

Apart from its vast oil reserves, Nigeria tops as the largest producer of cassava in the world, but the crop suffers huge post harvest losses occasioned by inadequate processing enterprises.

While commending IITA-CFC, Udenwa said no meaningful develop-ment, economic growth, wealth creation and poverty eradication could be achieved in any country without an efficient and effective industrial processing through value addition to agric commodities.

“Therefore, the establishment of these projects will go a long way in providing impetus to numerous cassava processors in the country on ‘best practice’ and quality assurance. I am convinced that the stand-ard of production and processing in Nigeria would be greatly impro-ved using these facili-ties,” he further stated.

According to Professor Lateef Sanni, an IITA-CFC Project Coordinator, the development of value chain projects seeks to shift the country’s attention from oil,—a commodity that currently provides more than 90 per cent of the country’s revenue, generate employment and create sustainable wealth.

Currently supporting small and medium enterprises in the cassava value chain, the $1.6 million project, which covers Nigeria, Benin and Sierra Leone, is also providing beneficiaries access to new cassava cultivars, product quality improvement and market expansion for sustainable enterprise.

Sanni further added that cassava can now be processed to several products including flour, starch, fortified cassava gari, fufu and tapioca among others to fight hunger and poverty in Africa.