Empowering Cassava Seed Entrepreneurs to achieve Food Security

The quest for food security is an onerous task in the midst of climate change, COVID-19, harsh operating environment and the likes. Gilbert Ekugbe was one of the journalists that embarked on the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture’s field trip that gathered firsthand information on how the GIZ-funded cassava and maize value chain project has been impacting the lives of Cassava Seed Producers (CSPs), reports:

Nigeria is acknowledged as the highest producer of cassava in the world. However, Nigeria is not among the countries that are rated to have the highest yield of cassava tubers per hectare. In fact, Nigeria is still struggling to produce over 10 tonnes cassava tubers per hectare even though it has the capacity to attain 40 tonnes per hectare. This has underscored the need to adopt a new seed system.  

This need has necessitated a project that is under the Green Innovation Centers of GIZ, which would last till 2024, as a response to the economic fragility occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic that brought lots of damages to seed systems of several crops including cassava and the livelihoods of millions of farmers, especially women and youth that depend on the root crops for their survival and incomes.

Far away in Okelopa Sotubo in Shagamu Local Government Area of Ogun State, Mrs. Solomon Temitope Esther, a beneficiary of the GIZ-funded project commended the initiative for its impact in boosting her productivity after failing twice to plant rice and maize.

The proud owner of 10 hectares of cassava farm said that discussions are ongoing to bring her cooperative of over 50 women on board, noting that this is one of the surest ways to help Nigeria attain food security while also creating wealth and job opportunities for Nigeria’s teeming youths.

Esther, however, called on the federal government to complement the efforts of the GIZ initiative by providing tractors for land preparation, adding that there are many virgin lands available for cultivation across the country.

She said: “There are so many arable lands suitable for cassava production, but the cost of renting a tractor is on the high side. Land preparation is still a major challenge hindering the opportunities in this sector. My cooperative has over 30 hectares of land, but no tractors to prepare the land for cultivation.”

The GIZ project provided cassava farmers access to affordable, quality-assured seeds of improved cassava varieties through the establishment of a commercially viable seed value chain. It also empowered farmers with intensive training on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) for sustainable cassava production.

Another beneficiary of the project, Mrs. Gbadebo Adejoke, in Odeda Local Government Area, Ogun State, commended the scheme, saying that she has been exposed to better ways of planting cassava, new improved varieties and how to increase her profitability.

Adejoke said: “I am very happy to be part of this project, but we are faced with lots of challenges. Many of the farmers in this local government still depend on manual labour and this is slowing the growth of the cassava farming. I have plans to do more, but I decided to start with this one. I am very interested in planting on a big farm. There are many cassava farmers that want to key into this project and we will be very happy if this project would bring more people on board.”

The Technical Advisor, GIZ Project, Mr. Divine Torkutsah, said that the grant was meant to support farmers to recover from the impact of COVID-19.  

Torkutsah said: “So then the grant was supposed to, with the help of IITA, to support farmers have access to quality or clean cassava seeds and as we have seen the module was such that we have farmers who would be producing sort of foundation seeds, and then these farmers are linked to other sets of farmers who will be producing commercially. So then we establish some sort of employment or value within the cassava seed value chain in itself. And as we have observed from the last few days from our first farm could see having independency a woman farming or being able to produce five hectares of cassava seed.  I could say the project has impacted or even if not for my word, but for what the beneficiary said this has positively impacted on them.

“So together with our federal partners, under the green innovation center, we are trying to improve value chains and cassava is one of them and this is one of the interventions that have been affiliated to the green innovation to support the value chain. So yes, we are already working to improve or to enhance or support the cassava value chain in the country.”

In the words of the Project’s Advocacy, Promotions and Outreach Lead, Dr. Godwin Atser: “Improved varieties are important to changing that narrative of cassava. Adoption of improved varieties will increase cassava productivity, ensure food security, guarantee processors of quality raw materials, and hinder the spread of cassava crop diseases on farms.”

Apart from its economic and sustainability elements, Atser said that the BASICS model had a job creation component.

He said: “Today, we have hundreds of farmers across Nigeria and Tanzania that are engaged in cassava stem multiplication and marketing,” he explained, adding that “currently, the project has created over 400 of cassava seed entrepreneurs in Benue, Kogi, Abia, Delta, Cross River and Akwa Ibom States.”

Atser said that the project had strengthend links with the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC), the country’s seed regulating agency. He noted that the country currently has two EGS companies – IITA GoSeed, a private company owned by IITA, and Umudike Seed, a private firm owned by the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike, Abia state.

A vegetative seed specialist and the General Manager of IITA GoSeed, Ms. Mercy Diebiru-Ojo, said that the early generation seed companies were responsible for multiplying the new varieties developed by the breeders in IITA, NRCRI, NextGen Cassava and other breeding programs.

Diebiru-Ojo said: “At IITA GoSeed, we use new technologies to multiply the improved varieties and make virus–free stems available to the seed producers who will further multiply and sell to farmers. Our Semi Autotrophic Hydroponics (SAH) technology has helped us surmount the slow multiplication challenge we used to have in the past. Now we are multiplying virus-free cassava planting materials at a much faster rate such that within two years of release, the improved planting materials are commercially available.