Background
It was emphasized in the preceding article that ‘basic needs’ (food, leather and footwear, wood and furniture, textile and apparel (garment) industries must be accorded number one priority by any country in the process of development because ‘basic needs’ are what matters most in life.
The focus in this very edition is on food, with particular reference to cassava. As we have already known and seen, our country Nigeria is blessed with large expanse of fertile soil, favourable climate conditions and abundant human resources that could produce all our staple food crops, not only the cassava we want to scrutinize here, but also yam, rice, beans, corn, millet and other grains, plantain, fruits and vegetables; and furthermore, cash (exportable) crops such as palm oil and kernel, cocoa, cashew, rubber, cotton and ground nuts. Beyond cassava, there may be additional need to similarly analyze other produce in terms of their economic importance, value chains (derivatives), market potentials, emerging investment opportunities and cost estimates for establishing each of them.
The Economic Importance of Cassava
Cassava is economically important because it serves not only as a key source of different varieties of food but also as a source of raw materials. It is indeed one of the most important staple food crops grown in Nigeria and in other sub-Saharan African counties, Latin America and Asia. It plays a major role in alleviating malnutrition and poverty. The cassava plant made up of the roots, leaves and stem, is all useful as a good and multipurpose source of carbohydrate and vitamins.
The roots can easily be manually or industrially processed into different types of native food (mainly flour and gari). The roots can also be industrially processed into raw materials in Breweries (in form of ethanol for formulating alcoholic drinks and sugar syrups for inventing energy drinks); in Bakeries (in form of flour and modified starch for making bread and snacks); and in the Textile industry (in form of industrial starch for hardening cotton fabrics). Its ethanol derivative is somehow a potential source of renewable energy.
The stem can be replanted to yield a multiplicity of produce or can be mixed with the leaves and possibly broken roots and fibre, and dried as animal-feed concentrate. The leaves can serve as vegetables for food and concoctions for local medicinal drinks.
The roots can be industrially chipped or palletized and packed as exportable products for eventual use in the formulation of animal feeds while the root-peel can be locally dried directly and preserved for the same purpose.
Cassava Value-chains
Cassava derivatives obtained by local processing may fall into four to seven common and uncommon categories:
Common categories
- Fresh roots
- Cassava flours: fermented/ fresh (akpu) and unfermented (fufu)
- Granulated and roasted / dried cassava (gari, chips and pellets)
- Sedimented (rudimentary)/ Laundry starches
Uncommon categories
- Leaves (cooked as vegetables)
- Drinks (with cassava components)
- Local Medicines
Domestic Market Potentials
In Nigeria, cassava processed for food in the form of gari, gaplek, or farinha and ’akpu’ cannot be exported. These forms are strictly under the export prohibition list and as such can only be sold in the local market. The same restrictive legal provisions govern the export of fresh roots.
The total potential value of Nigeria’s domestic cassava market is about N665 billion per annum.
Nigeria, being about the largest single-country potential producer of cassava in the world, currently producing about 50 million metric tons annually, must therefore take her rightful place as a nation that is self-sufficient in food production; as a nation to reckon with in the league of food exporting nations.
Export Market Potentials
It is only when the cassava tuber is mechanically processed in a standard form; dried, sorted and graded that it may be licensed as an exportable commodity. Chips, Pellets, Industrial Starch, Ethanol and Glucose are the commonest forms into which cassava could be mechanically processed for further use in industries or for direct exports, using appropriate technologies. The use of cassava root as animal feed is increasing in importance in the developing countries of Latin America and Asia where an export market for this commodity has been established.
From exports, Nigeria can easily generate additional $400 per ton from the 50,000 tons of cassava pellets that could be exported to Asia (i.e., $20 million or N7 billion (conservatively); and far more than that value, from potential cassava exports in the form of pellets, chips, granules, and industrial starch to the European Economic Community (EEC), estimated at over 5 million tons per annum.
Emerging Investment Opportunities
The greatest fascination is the emerging development of an improved local technology for the production of each of the cassava derivatives. There is the local gari component of an integrated plant, and the chipping and pelleting components. There is the industrial starch plant. There is also the ethanol manufacturing plant and there is the glucose production plant.
At this juncture, it might be useful to provide a concise cost estimate for setting up selected components of the project.
Cost Estimates of selected components of a micro-scale Cassava Project
COST ITEMS MECHANIZED GARI INDUSTRIAL STARCH CHIPS/ PELLETS (export)
Pre-Investments 150,000 200,000 250,000
Plantation Development 100,000 350,000 500,000
Factory Space 450,000 880,000 1,500,000
Fixed Assets 520,000 740,000 1,980,000
Working Capital 650,000 1,560,000 4,800,000
Total Costs 1,870,000 3,676,000 9,030,000
Note that more components may be incorporated and their scales may be adjusted to suit the size of the pocket of the investor.
Conclusion
The emphasis in this whole write-up is that any productive effort in the emerging (post-Covid_19) Nigerian economy that focuses essentially on the development of basic food and raw-material items, such as cassava, using improved technologies, is indeed worthwhile.
This writer is willing to assist potential investors or state governments interested in developing a cassava or other staple food value chains. All the necessary details including processing of cassava into local gari, or export-bound chips and pellets, or laundry and industrial starch, or ethanol, or glucose, will be provided on request. Information relating to backward integration (including plantation programme, harvesting and storage, using improved local technologies) would also be made available to investors willing to embark on a fully integrated cassava development project. Those willing to go into exports will obtain further details relating to government policy, export procedures and documentation, trade links, export financing, etc.
Other than the food sub-sector (represented here by cassava), the next editions of this write-up will beam searchlight on how money could be made from the production of another set of the ‘basic needs’ segment, ‘clothing (garment) and footwear’ respectively.
The writer could be reached via his email: chukwudiodili902@yahoo.com
Well thought out commentary keep it up