Govt targets $136m income from cassava export to China

NIGERIA’s economic diversification power might inch towards realisation soon, with plan through Federal Authorities to export a million tonnes of cassava chips to China, starting from this month.

The export enterprise is expected to bouy the country’s earnings by means of $136 million (N22 billion).

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Growth, Dr. Akinwunmi Adeshina made this disclosure in Umuahia, Abia State, on Wednesday, throughout the inauguration of the Growth Enhancement Help (GES) scheme, a crucial element of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda.

The scheme was once scripted as an innovative method to fertiliser subsidy management by method of an electronic device, which guarantees that solely registered farmers’ benefit.

“Nigeria will earn $136 million simply this yr on account of this exportation and this is taking place for the primary time in our history”, Adeshina said.



The minister reiterated the Federal Authorities’s determination to embark on measures that will boost the capacity of farmers within the country.

He delivered: “We must use cassava to create a complete lot of issues and that is why we should double our efforts on cassava cultivation on this country.”

He also disclosed that the government had accepted price range for the empowerment of farmers in Abia.

“The Federal Authorities will be offering the sum of N35 million to offer stepped forward cocoa seedlings to cocoa farmers in Abia”, including that eight kinds of hybrid cocoa had been released for onward delivery to farmers and that 25,000 pods would be distributed to farmers within the state freed from charge.

“The common yield we're getting right now from cocoa is 0.4 tonnes according to hectare; the yield of the new cocoa hybrid will present you with two tonnes in step with hectare and meaning you're going to get 5 times the yield you are currently getting.”

“Each cocoa farmer may even get the authorised fungicides and cartons of insecticides.”

He applauded the contributions of Abia as the biggest cocoa manufacturer in the South East geo-political zone.

The minister commended Leader David Onyenweaku from Abia, stated because the nation’s greatest particular person cocoa, pronouncing ``it's due to individuals like this that the Federal Authorities is encouraging farmers”, he said.

In the meantime, contributors at a workshop at the processing of cassava grit for chicken farmers in Nigeria have given insurance that processors have the capacity to fulfill local and worldwide calls for for the product.

A cross-part of the participants said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria that the price of the product in line with tonne could additionally drop appreciably from N50, 000 to about N26, 000.

Mr. Philip Ajomiwe, who used to be the facilitator of the one-day workshop, held at his processing plant in Oriendu near Umuahia, mentioned that cassava farmers and processors would produce sufficient to meet the necessity of chicken farmers.

Ajomiwe, who's a cassava grower and processor, said that farmers and processors could accentuate efforts to satisfy the Chinese language demand for two,000 metric tonnes of dry chips.

He thanked the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Improvement, for starting up a lot of insurance policies that would revolutionise the country’s agriculture.

He defined that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture just lately organised a training workshop at Enugu for farmers and processors within the South-East, where they had been tutored on fashionable techniques of cassava processing.

‘’This is just one a part of many projects by way of the minister to pressure President Goodluck Jonathan’s agricultural transformation agenda by manner of the worth chain method,’’ Ajomiwe said.

He defined that the workshop, which was organised on the occasion of the agriculture ministry, had 10 participants (trainer trainees), who were expected to train different processors and potential ones of their respective areas.

He stated that the contributors were taken round totally different processes, beginning from weighing two hundred kg of cassava tubers to the grating and mechanical drying to provide one hundred kg completed grit. ’’