Weed control, improved seeds key to accessing cassava export market

To boost the productivity of cassava production and ensure the country taps into $5 billion cassava export market, Nigeria must make investments in weed science research and cassava seeds system, experts have said.

Some of the limiting factors to increase productivity in cassava production are poor weed control and low quality seeds.

Despite being the world’s largest cassava producer, Nigeria is among the top global countries with low yield per hectare in production. This has made the country not to maximise the benefit of cassava export.

This yield gap puts Nigerian farmers at a disadvantaged position, which indicates that they cannot compete in the global cassava market, industry watchers say.

“Nigeria’s cassava production accounts for about 20 percent of the total global output of cassava but less than 1 percent of export,” Dixon explained in a keynote at the 2016 National Cassava Summit held in Abuja.

He urged the government and development partners to address the yield gap question in order to move the cassava sector forward.

Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the world with about 46 million metric tonnes and an average yield per hectare between 10.6 to 15 metric tonnes.

Research across the globe shows that some countries have started using micro-nutrients to upscale cassava yields to about 100 metric tonnes per hectare with starch contents of cassava up-scaled to 38 percent in Indian and 40 percent in Malaysia.

According to him, cassava is an appropriate commodity to feature in Nigeria’s economic development, defying the problems of a rapidly growing population and rising urbanisation that is demanding more food, feed for livestock and raw materials for industries.

“Farmers are not getting the yield they are supposed to get and this makes them not to break even. If the production of cassava is not attractive, farmers will not expand their production areas,” said Abdulai Jalloh, project leader, African Cassava Agronomy Initiative.

Besides the constraints of weed control, agronomy, and a lack of improved cassava seeds, experts also brought to the front burner the low use of mechanisation, limited access to finance and markets, poor transportation, and limited use of fertilisers and other inputs as bottlenecks that have limited the potential of cassava in Nigeria.

Peter Kulakow, cassava breeder, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) who represented the director general of IITA, Nteranya Sanginga, reiterated the commitment of IITA to support Nigeria towards agricultural transformation.
Sanginga urged the country to take advantage of cassava and create wealth and jobs for the young population.

According to him, “Value addition from cassava can generate jobs and income for youth, women, and investors in cassava from farmers and all stakeholders. Youth in Agribusiness in particular will provide the new business innovators to both drive down youth unemployment and fill agriculture with a new generation of vitality and expertise.”

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbe, acknowledge that the cassava industry’s potential had been hampered by the same factors that have hindered the development of other agricultural sub-sectors. These factors include the relatively low yields and high production costs; weak value chain coordination, poor infrastructure and poor access to finance.

In spite of the challenges, the Minister noted that the journey of a $5 billion begins with a single step, and that the government was ready to take that step together with partners. “Our Ministry is here to listen and learn of innovative ways in which we can collaborate to address the challenges ahead,” he said.

 

Josephine Okojie