SPECIAL REPORT: Despite huge spending over decades, Nigeria unable to produce enough cassava
Farmers, experts and data explain why cassava, one of Nigeria’s most iconic foods, perennially remains insufficient and expensive.
Grace Ebit, a farmer in Ibogo, Biase Local Government Area of
Cross River State, recalls her childhood with nostalgia. After her father lost his job in the mid-1960s, she dropped out of school and the family struggled to get food.
Her distraught father began to grow cassava and processed garri. That became the turning point.
“The business became big to the extent that we barely had free time to rest. Traders came from different states to buy garri in large quantities from us,” Mrs Ebit said.
6 min read
Cassava is one of the most important food crops in Nigeria. It feeds majority of the country’s population, yet, the country has never had enough of it and the prices of derived products such as garri, fufu, cassava flour, have always remained upwards.
Things have gone worse with Nigeria’s inflation reaching the highest levels in years lately. Food inflation reached a 15-year high in February.
Benjamin Okoye, who holds a doctorate in Agric. Economics, and is the Chief Research Officer, Cassava Research Programme at the
National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, speaks to PREMIUM TIMES on what he considers as reasons Nigeria’s cassava production level has remained low. He suggests solutions.