In the wake of the current cost of living crisis President Tinubu needs to launch a National Cassava Plan to guarantee food security and ensure there are never shortages

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria is the world’s largest cassava producer with an annual crop of about 60m tonnes accounting for some 20% of global output. We need to ensure that we always have ample stocks of the commodity

[2] Many of our staple foods like gari, fufu, akpu, lafun, etc are made from cassava, which is why we have never food shortages in Nigeria up until now. A national programme is now required to make sure that we always have about 50m tonnes in storage

[3] No matter what goes on in the rest of the world, Nigeria will always be able to live off cassava and yam. We also produce all the additives to go along with them like egusi, bitter leaf, spinach, etc. So we need to build cassava warehouses in each of our 774 local government areas

[4] It is estimated that worldwide, about 800m people depend on cassava as a source of staple foods and if Nigeria was marketing this crop well, it would generate at least $5bn a year for the economy in the form of export earnings. A National Cassava Plan would allow for this

[5] Worldwide, there was a surge in the growth of cassava, with tropical countries boosting production to cash in on the growing demand for ethanol in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. In Zambia for instance, about 150 tonnes of cassava was converted into ethanol daily to supply this new market

[6] With hand sanitizers certified as being effective and capable of killing 99% of virus and germs, demand can only grow. With ethanol accounting for 70% of the contents of these sanitizers, Nigeria is sitting on a potential gold mine

[7] Given that Nigeria also has the potential to be a major sugarcane producer like India, Brazil, Mexico or Thailand, there is absolutely no reason why we should not be the world’s number one producer and exporter of hand sanitizers. Sugarcane is the other product used to manufacture ethanol

[8] Given the limited future of crude oil, I wonder why Nigeria has not stepped up and made the switch. From what I can see, cassava alone can generate $10bn in foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria annually

[9] Now just imagine the income we would generate if Nigeria was processing her cassava into ethanol and then using this to make hand sanitizers. Can you imagine how much we would generate annually if say Nigeria accounted for 20% of global hand sanitizer production?

[10] Hand sanitizers are actually easy to produce and the capital outlay for factories is not that large, compared with say automobile assembly, steel plants or bottling factories. Our problem is we are just finding it hard to get out of our crude oil comfort zone. Nothing stops cassava products from generating the $30 we get from crude oil sales annually but our mindset!