The Natural Resources Institute (NRI), based at the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom, in partnership with the Federal University of Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Nigeria have been awarded with a grant of $500,000, along with technical assistance by the Rockefeller Foundation to develop solutions for increasing the shelf life of cassava crop.
The announcement was made by the Rockefeller Foundation, Dalberg and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) at the recent All Africa Post-Harvest Congress held in Nairobi, where it announced the winner of the cassava innovation challenge launched last year to uncover novel solutions for increasing cassava shelf life in Nigeria and the world.
The aim of the challenge is to test and market a bag with a built in curing technology that will keep cassava fresh for at least eight days after harvest, according to a press statements made available to BusinessDay.
Cassava which is very critical for Africa food security remains one of the main source of nutrition for an estimated half of the continents population, still has a very short shelf life and if unprocessed, will spoil within 24 -72 hours after harvesting.
Nigeria is the world’s largest cassava producer, accounting for more than 20 percent of global production which is more than 50 million tons annually, grown by nearly 30 million farmers, most of them with less than an acre of land.
About 40 percent of this cassava is lost due to spoilage, a tremendous problem that limits farmer incomes and rural economic development, and one that stretches far beyond Nigeria’s borders as food spoilage and wastage affects the global economy and impacts greenhouse gas emissions.
Mamadou Biteye OBE, Managing Director for Africa at The Rockefeller Foundation, said “Upon the recommendation of our expert judges, we are investing in NRI’s bagging technology in part because we see farmers using bags with great success to store other perishable crops. Now is the time to try this for cassava. We know that when farmers win, we all win.”
The challenge is part of YieldWise Rockefeller Foundation’s $130 million initiative launched in January 2016, aimed at reducing food loss by at least 50 percent by 2030 in representative value chains.
According to researchers post-harvest loss reduction solutions exist, but they are not reaching the farmers who need them. With the farmer in mind, the foundation is promoting a variety of interventions in the areas of education, technologies, financing and market solutions to ensure production is linked to demand, and so improving livelihoods, creating less vulnerable ecosystems and natural resources, and increasing food availability.
“Over the past five years, we have led numerous projects on the cassava value chain and designed facilities to invest in cassava across Africa. We have kept running into the number one constraint in cassava – its short shelf life,” said Nneka Eze, partner and co-lead, Agriculture & Food Security Practice at Dalberg Global Development Advisors.
“Over the past year, Dalberg designed the Challenge in partnership with IITA and The Rockefeller Foundation, reviewed over 600 applications, and coordinated inputs from our diverse group of expert judges. We are excited about the potential of NRI’s simple bagging solution to impact lives in Nigeria and in Africa, where more than half the world’s cassava is produced.”
Nteranya Sanginga, IITA’s director general, said “IITA is pleased to be part of this initiative to identify a workable and effective solution to this postharvest problem in cassava, especially in Nigeria, being the world’s biggest cassava producer, where about 14 percent of the produce is lost annually on average. Providing a solution to reducing postharvest loss in this crop would potentially provide annually more than $200 million to the cassava value chain.”
Josephine Okojie
