Adewumi who spoke at the policy intervention forum on industrial cassava in Lagos, said that the nation is in desperate need to get out of this problem, as orchestrated by world experts at different fora that the only solution is to diversify the nation’s economy into agriculture.
He said that the potential of cassava to generate wealth for the Nigeria Nation cannot be overemphasized, adding that cassava can be grown on commercial basis in most states of the country unlike other food crops.
He said that apart from the over twenty local food types that are made from cassava, it is also raw material to many utility items with limitless domestic and export market potentials.
“Let me state clearly here that most of the cassava varieties in the country are not meant for industrial use. The world has moved forward and left us behind in the method of cultivation and the result in terms of yield and their starch content.
“Beyond the experiment of micronutrients demonstrated to us at the Word Starch Conference meeting held in Thailand recently, which made cassava yield 100 metric tonnes per hectare, a cassava expert in Thailand is convinced that he can take the yield of cassava to 200 metric tonnes per hectare with 40 per cent starch content.”
He said that even if only 50 per cent of the above is achieved on the field, cassava will become the best crop in the world for industrial starch and ethanol.
“That presupposes the yield from 100 hectares cassava farm in Malaysia or Thailand will surpass that of 500 hectares in Nigeria. How then can our products compete in the international market?”
Adewumi, however, said that there has to be two cassava programmes, one for industrial uses and the second for food security.
He added that research should be encouraged for the preservation and elongation of the shelf life of the various local food items derived from cassava so that they will be durable for both local and international market.
“It is my opinion that if gari, Lafun, fufu were discovered in the Western world, cassava would have been a major food in the world competing with Rice and Bread. It is an instant food that can be eaten as it is. The compelling aroma of gari on its own creates appetite even when the eater is full. We should advertise and promote it to the rest of the world.”
He called for a cassava industrial programme, stressing that it is the aspiration of NCGA that the above programme should be well planned to meet the challenges of competition in the quality and cost of production of the various items produced from cassava. [myad]
