News in brief: Enugu State governor Peter Mbah revealed his plans for a cassava plantation that covers 100,000 hectares of land. The produce is targeted at boosting the agric export sector.
Enugu State government has announced its plan for a 100,000-hectare cassava plantation to produce enough crops for export. Governor Peter Mbah plans to create jobs through the venture by adding value chain processing. The produce will be converted into cassava flour, cassava cake, cassava chips and more.
He made the announcement during a sit-down with a Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning delegation.
“This project is in sync with our developmental plan. Weâve identified agriculture as one of the productivity sectors,” the governor said.
No doubt, he was referring to his inaugural speech promises where he had told the people of the state that his administration will ‘retool and re-energise [their] agriculture/agro-allied sector’. At the time, Mbah had mentioned implementing Special Economic Zones and Special Agro-allied Processing Zones. He said that this will help unlock rural economy.
While he is yet to confirm if the state will set up special economic zones to cover the cassava plantation, it seems likely as the attached value adding activities he mentioned will work better in a special agro-allied processing zone.
“Enugu has arable land that yields five times more than other states. We will be working with you closely in this regard and weâre ready to provide you all the things you need to start the pilot project in our state,” Mbah added during his address.
According to this data, Enugu is an agrarian state thanks to its rich soil. It makes sense that the governor is capitalising on this to improve the economy. However, the farmers and other small business entities that will set up shop on or because of the 100,000 cassava plantation in Enugu will need funding or at least, input support. The governor had promised a â¦100 billion fund for SMEs during his inaugural speech, calling for private sector and other development financial institutions’ participation.
The land, if well optimised, should yield about 2 million to 2.4 million tonnes of cassava, if one hectare yields between 20 and 24 tonnes. Although, Nigeria is already the top cassava producer in the world, increasing output will provide more crops to export as local consumption (food and industrial) already depletes over 90% of this.
Production is not all that Enugu’s 100,000-hectare cassava plantation will need to attain export success. It will need conscious efforts to add value and also prevent post-harvest wastage.
