The federal government is to collaborate with the private sector to establish 18 cassava processing industries with machines that can process 240 tonnes of cassava per day.
Olusegun Adewunmi, the President, Nigeria
Cassava Growers Association (NCGA), stated this in Abuja on Thursday.
Adewunmi said this was in line with the
Agricultural Transformation Agenda of
President Goodluck Jonathan’s Administration, pointing out that the processing industries would create market for cassava.
The objective of the agenda was to generate
employment and transform the country into a
leading player in global food markets to grow wealth for millions of farmers.
The agenda was designed to make the
agricultural sector a business project to
promote private investment in agriculture.
Adewunmi said that the cassava growers would have to work “really hard” to be able to meet the requirement of the processing industries, especially as the country had started exporting cassava grits and chips to China.
“For the first time, a farmer can sit down and make a programme of his own and it is
acceptable to the bank and to the government,” he said. “’In the past, it was the ministry that will make the programme, but we are glad it is no longer like that. The agriculture transformation agenda is working; it is giving us freedom.”
Adewunmi, who observed that the membership of the association had increased to more than one million farmers, said that the membership would be more than 10 million in the next six months.
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