By Kate Okorie, chicken story company
As much as 70% of Nigerians eat cassava each day. The farmers who deliver this staple to Nigerian tables are rising their earnings by promoting the stems of improved cassava varieties.
On an unusually sunny day in October in Umudike, located within the south-eastern state of Abia, the good rays of the solar solid a glow on Samuel Ijebuonwu’s conventional Nigerian two-piece apparel in order that its vibrant blue hue matched the sky.
Squinting towards the solar, Ijebuonwu adopted a large footpath flanking a big expanse of farmland. Then he made a proper flip and disappeared behind a dense thicket of cassava crops.
Like a lot of his neighbours, Ijebuonwu has rented 1.5 hectares of land to develop his crops.
On this farmland, he cultivates high-yielding cassava crops bought from a seed firm that bears the identical identify – Umudike Seeds – as its host group.
Ijebuonwu has not all the time cultivated modified cassava varieties, nor produced cassava on such a big scale.
“I used to farm in small plots of land behind my home and rented farmlands,” he defined.
Again then, when the edible cassava tubers matured, he harvested them to feed his household of six and offered the small surplus. The stems have been both replanted or left to rot on the farm; some got to associates freed from cost.
He repeated this cycle 12 months after 12 months, till 2019, when he was enlisted into the Umudike Cassava Seed Entrepreneurship Programme and found he might make further revenue from the stems of the improved cassava varieties.
Within the first 12 months, his revenue grew by 10%, Ijebuonwu mentioned.
So-called ‘cassava seed entrepreneurs’, like Ijebuonwu, promote cassava stems, additionally known as seeds, to different native farmers inside their communities to plant on their very own fields.
An evaluation of the profitability of business seed manufacturing among the many high 50% of cassava seed entrepreneurs in southern Nigeria, together with Abia State, revealed that stem gross sales accounted for about two-thirds of complete income.
A bundle comprising fifty stems can price as much as US$1.5 for the improved cassava varieties.
“Typically you make extra, typically much less. All of it relies on market demand,” Ijebuonwu defined, standing on an oblong patch of fallow land that marked the boundary between his cassava farm and his neighbour’s.
He anticipated that his present cassava crop – which might take from six to 18 months to mature – would solely be prepared for harvest by August or September 2024. Nevertheless, earlier than that point, he deliberate to reap the stems to promote to different farmers in the course of the early planting season in Could.
“That’s the enterprise!” he exclaimed.
Ijebuonwu has but to resolve the promoting worth for the stems in his subsequent harvest as he’s nonetheless monitoring the market.
One other neighbour, Daniel Sunday, nevertheless, is extra centered on growth than promoting stems.
Sunday joined the Cassava Entrepreneurship Programme 4 years in the past. He had been cultivating cassava in his yard till he received in contact with a crew from Umudike Seeds. He jumped on the alternative to broaden manufacturing, he mentioned.
“After my first harvest as a cassava seed entrepreneur, I replanted all of the stems into my one-hectare farmland. The earnings from promoting the roots lined the manufacturing prices, so there was no must promote the seeds,’ he defined.
He disclosed that he invested 290,000 naira (about US$373.8) and made roughly 480,000 naira (roughly US$616.7) after his harvest. Bolstered by the monetary achieve, he prolonged his farm to 2 hectares the next 12 months.
He famous that his revenue margin was increased than most farmers, because of the cassava breed that he cultivates requiring little upkeep to thrive, lowering his bills on inorganic fertilisers.
Whereas glad with promoting harvested tubers, he additionally intends to promote some cassava stems within the subsequent harvesting season, as a seed entrepreneur. Referrals from seed corporations and analysis institutes, together with a surge in farming, means there’s a fixed demand.
“When farmers come to the institute to purchase improved cassava seeds, we direct them to the seed entrepreneurs,” mentioned Chiedozie Egesi, govt director of the Nationwide Root Crops Analysis Institute (NRCRI).
Umudike Seeds was established by the NRCRI in 2019 to bridge the hole within the seed worth chain by selling novel seed varieties developed in its labs.
To realize this objective, Umudike Seeds companions with seed entrepreneurs to multiply and distribute improved seed breeds to farmers inside their communities.
The sustainability of Umudike Seeds has been related to its commercialisation of the formal seed system – a key part lacking in earlier formal cassava breeding tasks.
“Nigeria is the very best producer of cassava globally, however we now have not been producing effectively,” defined Egesi.
Information from the Meals and Agriculture Organisation reveals that Nigeria produced 63 million tonnes of cassava in 2021. Nevertheless, the nation’s productiveness of 8.2 tonnes per hectare falls beneath the worldwide common yield of 11.08 tonnes per hectare, a state of affairs Egesi attributes to disruptions within the provide of enhanced seed varieties. He acknowledged that Umudike Seeds has been in a position to partially handle this example by way of the Cassava Seed Entrepreneurship Programme.
Of their place as middlemen, the cassava seed entrepreneurs have helped shorten the time it takes for improved seed varieties to succeed in native communities.
“Up to now, the seeds might keep on the institute’s shelf for as much as 20 years. By the point they received to the farmers, they have been not related,” Egesi mentioned.
Whereas cassava is of course drought resistant, some improved varieties are additional enhanced for drought tolerance. These seeds are examined on the institute’s station in Kano State, a drought-prone area in northern Nigeria.
“This course of helps us perceive how the seeds carry out beneath minimal rainfall,” he defined.
To qualify as cassava seed entrepreneurs, farmers should maintain a certification from the Nationwide Agricultural Seed Council (NASC).
“Earlier than the cassava seed entrepreneurs are cleared to promote improved seeds, they’re required to endure three ranges of inspection by the NASC on the pre-production, manufacturing and post-production phases,” mentioned Peter Chukwu, manufacturing officer at Umudike Seeds.
The certification physique checks for properties like seed purity, plant spacing, weed management and illness susceptibility.
Umudike additionally gives coaching and mentorship to the cassava seed entrepreneurs.
Whereas the varietal grown by Samuel Ijebuonwu – the coveted TME 419 – is standard as a result of its excessive starch content material, seed entrepreneurs nonetheless have issue convincing some farmers to buy the stems from improved cassava varieties.
Uprooting just a few cassava crops to disclose the tuber yield underground, Isaac Bosua, a industrial seed entrepreneur with 15 years of expertise, confirmed how he employs a sensible method to win over sceptical farmers. Inviting them to his farm, he reveals them the outcomes first-hand.
Bosua mentioned he doesn’t miss his days rising native cassava varieties regardless of the extra effort wanted to market cassava stems of the improved selection.
“The distinction between then and now’s simply too clear,” he mentioned.
/chicken story company