Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country in terms of human population but unfortunately because of our myriads of problems, it seems to be the least accomplished relatively in terms of national aspirations across the continent.
Ever since I was born till date, if there is one natural resource that I am convinced that has been a huge source of curse to our nation rather than the blessing it is being assumed to be, it is the crude oil.
This mineral resource called Crude Oil is one of the major reasons our political leaders have obviously neglected an aspect of our economy, that should have given us as a nation such a huge volume of revenue in terms of foreign exchange than we could have ever imagined to be feasible, if it had been explored and harnessed.
This sector is no other sector than that which Mr. Akinwunmi Adesina, whom during his time as the Nigerian Minister of Agriculture made to be one of the most thriving sectors of the economy at that time. This sector is known to contribute 24% to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
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This acutely under harnessed sector of the Nigerian economy being talked about here is the Agricultural Sector.
The Agricultural sector of the Nigerian economy has been relatively under explored because of the inability of the political class to think in the interest of the masses by supporting commercial farming and industrial scale processing of agricultural products in every conceivable way.
Before I delve a bit further into this topic, I would want to remind you my dear reader that we are in the rainy season in Nigerian and as such, it is time to till the ground and cultivate in the interest of your family.
Permit me to share with you that there are a lot of crops we can focus on its large-scale cultivation as a nation, with the aim of producing such in commercial quantities and most importantly, value addition to these agricultural products should be prioritized.
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The era where we just plant crops, harvest them, allow them to waste or export them without any form of value addition should be over, if we must make the most out of our agricultural sector.
Crops and plants like cassava, egusi, vegetables like pumpkin, water leaf, green, fruits like pineapple, orange, mango, cashew, bitter cola, palm fruit, ginger, garlic, cocoyam, yam, plantain etc. should be planted in the interest of the nation.
Let us talk about cassava, its production and our unfortunate inability as a nation, to harness the derivatives from this quite rich plant.
Whenever you hear of cassava, what exactly comes to your mind? Garri, cassava flakes, and most likely fufu which the Ngwa people from Abia State call loi loi.
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Dear reader, how would you feel if I inform you today that Nigeria, is the second largest producer of sorghum in the world, while also being the fifth largest producer of palm oil and cocoa bean as of the year 2022, in the entire world?
Then when it comes to the production of cassava, would you not doubt me if I told you clearly, that Nigeria is the world largest producer of raw cassava? All these statistics as given above are ebulliently corroborated by PwC.
The cookie crumbles when you are now told that the world largest producer of cassava, has near zero supply of ethanol. Ethanol is a major constituent of processed cassava.
Nigeria as a country has an annual industrial and domestic demand of over 1 billion litres of ethanol, with over 400 million litres of ethanol, being needed for only industrial use.
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Let me put this ethanol production from cassava conversation in context.
Just in 2018/2019, the world’s largest producer of cassava (Nigeria), which is a major raw material for the production of ethanol, imported about 18 million gallons (68 million litres) of ethanol, valued at about $26 million from the USA.
Nigeria makes folks like us cry painfully, when it dawns on us that this volume of resources was taken out of the nation’s economy because of our inability to process what we produce.
Let me start concluding this write up with these story lines.
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation as at 2019 made a proposal to cultivate 32,000 hectares of cassava and 15,000 hectares of sugar cane cultivation in Kebbi State.
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To further pursue their ambition to cultivate plants that they can use to generate ethanol when processed, which would be used in generating renewable energy, NNPC further went into Kogi State to cultivate sugar cane plantation on 20,000 hectares of farmland and cassava on 15,000 hectares.
The output of these NNPC ethanol production raw material inspired farms is intended to serve as the feedstock for NNPC’s proposed 84 million litres per day ethanol plant, in their quest for renewable energy sources.
It would be good to know that 1 tonne of cassava would yield 166 litres of ethanol. Nigeria would need to produce 2.41 million metric tonnes (MMT) of cassava to be able to meet its huge demand gap.
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More than 12 million metric tonnes from a total average of 501,000 metric tonnes per hectare, will be needed to meet the over 2.1 million metric tonnes of domestic demand for garri in Nigeria.
Knowing that we can derive an income of $2.98 Billion from export of cassava seems more like a child’s play when you are made to know that local value addition to cassava through local manufacturing and processing, could potentially unlock the sum of $16 million in taxes to the Nigerian government.
The following products can be extracted from well processed cassava; ethanol, cassava-based constituent in sugar syrup, high quality cassava flour, garri, cassava-based adhesives such as cassava starch, caustic soda, formaldehyde, hydrochloric acid, sodium silicate.
Conclusion.
The political class in Nigeria and our private business owners must come to terms with the huge economic potential locked up in cassava and other agricultural products when adequately processed. There is every need to invest in establishing these factories, while teaching the farmers about cassava plants and their varieties which are best suited for these industrial and domestic needs.