Federal Government is to sponsor a bill that will ensure cassava flour utilisation by flour milling companies in the country.
Audu Ogbeh, minister for agriculture, who made this known at a day National Cassava Summit, held recently in Abuja, explained that the bill, when passed into law, would ensure that agricultural lending rate drops to about 5 percent.
While urging stockholders in the agricultural sector to stand up to the fight, Ogbeh encouraged younger people to take to agriculture.
According to Ogbeh, “hunger is a bad political adviser that would do no one any good.”
The National Cassava Summit 2016 with the theme, “Towards $5 billion per annum cassava industry in the next five years,” according to Austin Maduka, public relations officer, Nigeria Cassava Growers Association (NCGA), aimed at exposing stakeholders to the current state of the cassava sub-sector and basis for transformative change, promote inclusive investment in the cassava industry based on analysis and dialogue.
He stated also that the summit intended to develop strategies for launching cassava into a high performing and growth oriented sub-sector and build consensus on a policy framework to underpin cassava industrial development.
Maduka, explained that the summit provided opportunity for all stakeholders-farmers association, research institutions, input suppliers, banks, small medium scale processors, large scale industrial processors, transporters, marketers, development organisations and government ministries and departments to discuss issues confronting the sector with a view to finding lasting solutions to the problems.
“It also aimed at providing accurate data on the state of cassava industrial and food market, as well as repositioning and reorganising a well coordinated and well targeted positive action that would act as a catalyst for growth for corresponding multiplier effects on job creation and industrialization”.
Partners to the programme include, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Foundation for Partnership in the Niger Delta (PIND), Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Nigeria Institute of Food Science and Technology, Federal Institute for Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO), United State Agency for International Development’s Maximizing Agricultural Revenue and Key Enterprises in Targeted Sites (MARKETS).
Others are the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Department for International Development (DFID) Market Development (MADE), Programme and Cassava Adding Value in Africa (CAVA) all Harvest plus, Nigeria Cassava Growers Association (NCGA), National Cassava Processors and Marketers Association (NCAPMA) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).
