In its bid to transform agriculture as the engine room of growth and national development, the Federal Government yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kwara State Government on cassava transformation.
Speaking at the signing ceremony at the Government House, Ilorin, the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, who signed on behalf of the Federal Government, said the MoU is designed to encourage the cultivation of cassava in commercial scale in the state.
Akinwumi said it is borne out of the success story of the Shonga Commercial Farming initiative of the state government and the Molete Youth Integrated Training Farm.
The objectives of the MoU, according to Akinwumi, is to facilitate market outlet for 660,000 tons of cassava in the short-term, upgrade five Small and Medium Scale Enterprises producing high quality cassava flour, conduct infrastructure and equipment upgrade for eight clusters of food processors, establish 14 large dried chip processing plants each capable of producing 6,000 tons of dried chips, create out grower farmers and establish demonstration trials in 50 locations in the state, among others.
“Your Excellency, Kwara State is very important to Nigeria. This state is rapidly transforming as the sustainable food basket of Nigeria,” the minister said.
Akinwumi, who described agriculture as a real profitable business, wondered why its performance is abysmally low especially in the North-East and North-West that have the highest level of poverty, malnutrition and unemployment.
According to minister, China was able to lift 400 million people out of poverty in 10 years through agriculture, which he said is equally possible in Nigeria if we begin to see agriculture as a serious business, rather than just a development project.
Nigeria as the largest producer of cassava in the world, the minister observed, produces about 84 million metric tons but still ranks low in terms of value added.
The essence of the MoU, therefore, is to focus on high quality cassava flour through which billions of naira could be saved annually with a view to making cassava a cash crop and focus on Kwara State to diversify the economy.
Signing the MoU on behalf of the state government, the state Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, described the occasion as a significant milestone, saying it was time that agriculture is used to truly transform the economy.
The governor, who praised the efforts of the minister in using agriculture to drive the nation’s economy, said 70 per cent of the country’s population, many of whom reside in the rural areas, are involved in agriculture.
While pledging the support of his administration to the transformation agenda, Ahmed told the minister that the state government has identified cassava, rice, maize and soya beans as four core crops to be cultivated in commercial scale in the state to address the problem of food security in the country.