About 500 cassava farming enterprises producing about 0.15
million tons of cassava would emerge in Ogun State, if the state government
clears 1,000 hectares out of the 5,000 available for cassava farming in the
state.
This was disclosed by Segun Adewunmi, president, Nigeria Cassava
Growers Association (NCGA), at the recently concluded Ogun State Investment
Forum, which focused primarily on agriculture and property development, in
Abeokuta.
During a plenary anchored by Ndidi Nwuneli, co-founder, AACE Foods,
Adewumi said this would be made possible if the state government, which has
claimed that it is opened to business, first do the clearing of about 1,000
hectares of land. This call for land clearing or development has been made
severally to virtually all state governments in the country by investors in
crop production. This is because land clearing or development of virgin lands
for agricultural purpose takes huge chunks of an investors’ fund. If this is
done with borrowed funds, it becomes very difficult and takes longer time for
the investor to break even.
According to Adewumi, about 10 hectares of land would be
apportioned to every identified youth who would be expected to produce 30 tons
per hectare of cassava to realise about 300 tons. If every of these 500
businesses get 300 tons of cassava, these new businesses will be supplying
150,000 tons annually. This output is specifically targeted at industries in
Ogun State and neighbouring states that use cassava as major raw material in
their production process. This is to solve the problem of cassava milling
plants that produce below their capacity or go under as a result of not being
able to get sufficient quantities of cassava for their operations.
Also, according to Atsuko Toda, country programme manager,
International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) in Nigeria, most
smallholder farmers produce cassava for the production of garri and fufu. The
reason is not farfetched as explained by Adewumi, who said it would be
difficult to get smallholder farmers to supply the cassava needs of industries,
citing examples of industries that are running under capacity because they have
only small-scale cassava producers to depend on.
