FG to enhance cassava farmers’ access to market

Lack of reliable market creates a ‘vicious cycle’ in the challenges facing smallholder farmers in the country in certain crops like cassava.

At the second National Commodity Alliance Forum (CAF) and Cassava Value Chain Investment Dialogue on “Farmer-off-taker Learning Platform,” organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the International Fund for Agriculture Value Chain Development Project (IFAD/VCDP) in Abuja, experts highlighted the various ways to expand the cassava market across its numerous value chain.

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Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Alhaji Muhammad Sabo Nanono particularly noted that despite the importance of smallholder farmers, their livelihoods were constrained by a host of challenges.

Nigeria is currently the largest producer of cassava in the world, with an estimated figure of about 60million metric tonnes, and with the capacity to double or triple the production figure if the product is fully industrialised.

But market access has remained a huge problem despite various attempts to include cassava in bakery flour and other value chain products like starch and so on.

The CAF is facilitating the knowledge sharing platform of farmers, government, off-takers and financial institutions with credible credit delivery services, input dealers and civil society organisations. It is an inclusive market engagement strategy, which drives the decision of smallholder farmers to produce for identified markets.

Dr Abdulkadir Mu’azu, the permanent secretary in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the CAF focused particularly on the cassava value chain in order to provide opportunity for key players to share knowledge, network and facilitate partnership with the FG/IFAD Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) for cassava farmers.

Alhaji Garba Bala, the national programme coordinator of the VCDP,  said the country was looking at various ways it could strengthen the cassava value chain activities through a robust market structure that would encourage local industries to key  into the value chain to promote and encourage local production.