Cassava Research Programme News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

SPECIAL REPORT: Despite huge spending over decades, Nigeria unable to produce enough cassava Farmers, experts and data explain why cassava, one of Nigeria’s most iconic foods, perennially remains insufficient and expensive. Grace Ebit, a farmer in Ibogo, Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State, recalls her childhood with nostalgia. After her father lost his job in the mid-1960s, she dropped out of school and the family struggled to get food. Her distraught father began to grow cassava and processed garri. That became the turning point. “The business became big to the extent that...

6 min read Cassava is one of the most important food crops in Nigeria. It feeds majority of the country’s population, yet, the country has never had enough of it and the prices of derived products such as garri, fufu, cassava flour, have always remained upwards. Things have gone worse with Nigeria’s inflation reaching the highest levels in years lately. Food inflation reached a 15-year high in February. Benjamin Okoye, who holds a doctorate in Agric. Economics, and is the Chief Research Officer, Cassava Research Programme at the National Root Crops Research Institute, Umu...