Commodity Development Initiative: Cassava

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Overview

Although Nigeria is reputed to be the largest producer of cassava in the world with an estimated 53million metric tons annually, the nation expends an estimated $600m every year on importation of cassava derivatives. In addition, the yield per hectare of cassava remains very low at 8 tons per hectare compared with over 35 tons per hectare in other cassava producing countries like Brazil and China.Accordingly, the CBN included cassava as one of the focal crops under the Commodity Development Initiative for a holistic programme to ramp up production by small holder farmers, link the farmers to local processors and ensure off take of the locally processed cassava by major users including multinationals.

Objective of the Initiative

The major thrust of the CBN cassava programme under the Commodity Development Initiative (CDI) is:

• Substitution of cassava derivatives importation averaging $600m annually with local production of 42 million metric tons of cassava for processors.
• Bridge tuber supply gaps of local processors through finance of small holder farmers under ABP for increased production moving yield per hectare from average of 8 to 35 metric tons. .
• Reduce post-harvest in high impact cassava zones of the country through linkage to markets and deployment of mini-processing plants to fix logistics challenge of movement of fresh tubers from the high impact zones to processing plants.
• Create a platform for multi-stakeholder partnership involving multinationals users of locally produced derivatives, food regulators and Nigeria Customs Service towards overall patronage of local processors.
• Sustain financing of the large-scale cassava processing plants.

Implementation Strategy

To achieve the objectives, CBN provided funding for all tiers of the value chain as well as financing deployment of mini-processing plants in the high impact cassava production zones.

Focal States

The CBN cassava programme is currently being implemented in all the 36 States and FCT.

Financing Intervention

Since the cassava programme funds both production and processing, the intervention windows include

• Anchor Borrowers Programme
• Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund and
• Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme