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Despite being world’s largest cassava producer, Nigeria is among the top global importers of cassava by-products such as starch, flour and ethanol.
A recent sectorial report by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) shows that the country imported a $654 million (N235.4 billion) worth of cassava by-products in 2017.
Development stakeholders attributed to the low quality of cassava flour and technology gaps in the processing of these by-products in the country.
Nigeria industries have continued to import, starch, flour and ethanol in large quantities as they claim that not much local starch and flour meets their standards, saying that the market has failed to constantly supply high quality starch and flour.
This puts pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves, money that could have been saved if the country could tap into the opportunities in cassava production.
“Quality and technology are the major issues still driving the importation of these by-products,” said Tunde Oderinde, team leader, Market Development Programme in the Nigeria Delta (MADE), a body promoting Nigeria cassava value chain development in a response to questions.
“Technology is a major issue and our local processors are not investing, most of them just go to a fabricator to pick things up in shelves without paying much attention to the right quality the industries who are users of these by-products wants.”
“We need an integrated mill where the quality and granular of these by-products are uniform and consistent without having colour,” Oderinde said.
According to MAN sectorial data, Nigeria’s demand for starch is put at 600,000MT and supply is 24,000MT with imports accounting for 576,000MT (96 percent) yearly. Also, local demand for HQCF is put at 504,000MT and supply is 60,480MT, with importation accounting for 443,520MT (88 percent) yearly.
Similarly, ethanol demand is put at 350 million MT and local supply is 10.5 million MT, while imports accounted for 339.5 million MT (97 percent) yearly.
Starch and cassava flour are used in many across food and beverage firms for the production of caramel, biscuits, bread and confectioneries. It is also used in pharmaceutical and non-food industries such as batteries firms, gum and super glue, among others.
“We in the pharmaceuticals industry import heavy tonnage of corn starch because the modified cassava starch does not meet up with the acceptable pharma standards,” Orimadegun Agboade, chairman and managing director, Orfema Pharmaceutical Industry Limited told BusinessDay.
Union Dicon is one company showing massive interest in starch, having acquired 15,000 hectares of land in Ebonyi to produce cassava, starch and other food products.
“Nigeria mostly operates in the upstream cassava sector rather than the downstream, which limits advantages the country can get,” AfricaFarmer Mogaji, CEO, X-Ray Farms Consulting Limited said.
“The price of fresh cassava tuber from the farm is higher than the price of imported processed cassava chips. Our cassava yield is still low even if we are the largest producers, there is no equipment for planting and harvesting,” Mogaji said.
“We need to competitive and this requires a lot of investments in the various value chains. We need to increase the productivity of our smallholder farmers from an average of 12 metric tons per hectare to 24 metric tons per hectare to drive down the price of fresh tubers, thereby making our by-products price competitive,” he added.
Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the world with about 46 million metric tonnes and an average yield per hectare between 10.6 to 15 metric tonnes.
The biggest challenge confronting farmers is low yield per hectare. “Farmers are not getting the yield they are supposed to get and this makes them not to break even. If the production of cassava is not attractive, farmers will not expand their production areas,” said Abdulai Jalloh, project leader, African Cassava Agronomy Initiative.
He said that some of the limiting factors to increased productivity in cassava production are poor weed control and high cost of farm inputs.
Research across the globe show that some countries have started using micro-nutrients to upscale cassava yields to about 100 metric tonnes per hectare with starch content of cassava up-scaled to 38 percent in Indian and 40 percent in Malaysia.
Jalloh stated that If Nigeria must take advantage of the high potentials in cassava production; farmers need varieties with high starch content, adding that government must initiate policies that would boost cassava production in the country.
Cassava requires less labour than all other staple crops. However, it requires considerable post-harvest labour because the roots are highly perishable and must be processed into a storable form soon after harvest, experts say.
Josephine Okojie and Bunmi Bailey
