Ogun to have 500 new youth-owned cassava production businesses

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.

Adewumi further stated: “We have got the support of the minister of agriculture. The support we need from Ogun State is the land clearing. We would bring the Federal Government to complete the remaining 4000 hectares.

“When the mechanisation is there, other things will follow. The cost of production will go down. We would bring the funding. We have the cassava flour fund and we would bring it to Ogun State. All we need for these is just about 5,000 hectares of land, we are ready to provide all the funding for cultivation. We have the funds right now, the problem of lack of cassava will be solved. We are going to drive it and it will work. We can achieve this in three months.”

Jite Okoloko, managing director, Notore, was also at the forum with assurance of access to fertilisers for farmers, saying already, Notore had a very strong presence in rural communities and provided not only the large 50kg bags of fertilisers, but smaller sizes to take care of the needs of big and small farmers.

Toda, the IFAD country director, assured that IFAD would be working with farmers’ organisations to train farmers and provide funding support. So, even though, there is still lots of emphasis on supporting the older generation of smallholder farmers, emphasis is gradually shifting to youth farmers with the capacity to handle larger production through mechanisation, with focus on Ogun State which still has thousands of hectares of agricultural land.

OLUYINKA ALAWODE