Where Is the Cassava Bread OBJ, Jonathan Ate? - Zimbabwean Farmer

2014 interview Mr.Shedrack Madlionis a Zimbabwean farmer who manages the Kaduna-based multimillion naira farm owned by Adamawa state Governor Murtala Nyako. Madlion speaks on the Federal Government's ambitious cassava initiative launched by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and said instead of that Nigeria should focus on wheat programme. Excerpts: What is your assessment of the Federal Government's cassava project? The cassava initiative in this country has failed for the fourth time now, and the 10 billion naira cassava programme is also going to be a failure. In 2003, 2004, the presidential initiative on cassava ploughed many farmers into massive debt. Between Iyala (in Cross River State), Ekpoma (in Edo State), Vandeikya, Igumale and Utonkon, (in Benue State), Pankshin and Langtang (in Plateau State), we had 487,000 metric tonnes of cassava waiting for government to evacuate. You can't roof a house when there are no foundations. It is only in this country that we have policies where we have roofs over a house while we have not built the house. We don't even have pillars to carry the roof ... Cassava is not a bankable crop. It is a nine-month crop. Despite the fact that we talked about other shorter varieties of seven months, eight months, the truth of the matter is that you need the water base of cassava to distill. Cassava must be harvested the same day, peeled, blended and you take out water - all the same day. That is massive value chain machinery that is required. The smallest of those machines handles between 30,000 and 60,000 tonnes of cassava at the same time. We had only one existing somewhere in Benue State now, we used to have some in Ihiala (in Imo State). Are you now saying that I will produce cassava and start moving them to Ihiala? Are you now saying that the man in Ibadan, in Osun, or Omora (in southwest) would now start carrying his cassava to Benue to get them done, because this is the only way you can get it done to get the proper cassava chips that are used by pharmaceuticals or those who want to use them to do other value chains? What it takes to look after cassava stem in Nigeria is the same thing it takes to look after a pregnant woman who is carrying pregnancy for nine months. The woman would go for ante-natal and take some kind of medication; the same equal principles you would use to look after cassava, so it is not bankable at all. If any farmer has gone to pick up loan to invest in cassava, he would end up going to jail or you will end up losing your collateral, if the loan is availed to you. Why are we neglecting the fact that God has given us massive land to grow wheat? Wheat wastes can go for our livestock. The back peel of cassava is not eaten by any livestock, not even pigs eat it. It (cassava) is limited to tapioca, fufu or garri. All the hullaballoo about cassava is not helping us; that we export cassava chips - yes Nigeria is the world's second biggest producer of cassava, but we must get it right. Let us have value chain centres, let us bring in the private sector that should have these whole things on the ground. It is when the private sector has seen the commercial (benefit) that it would develop on its own. When the FG was asking farmers to organize themselves into cooperatives, what were the contributions big farmers made to the formation of this policy that you are now criticizing it this way? We need to remind government that this is another conduit pipe,to defraud the tax payer. It is very critical that the Federal Government knows that what it takes us one month to produce and earn (some money) is probably taking us six months or one year to do this time around. The population of this country is growing; it means we must be very careful on how to adopt policies and how we implement them. Enough of these jokes. The projection made on the cassava programme was that it was going to earn the country huge foreign exchange. Do we continue with the scheme? We should put a total full stop to cassava programmes. The truth of the matter is on how many shelves or how many supermarkets have you been to and seen cassava bread? I would not allow my child to eat cassava bread. Why? Wheat is a 145-day crop. Why would I do a nine-month crop that the value chain is enormous? We need the wheat, we could use it to do good bread; the stock of wheat is good for livestock. The value chain development for wheat is totally enormous compared to cassava. Northern Nigeria - Marte, Biu, Jama'are - they are all wheat beds. We have enough capacity to produce the wheat that we can use and even export. We are doing 12 billion naira wheat importation yearly