By Ephraim Agbo
In a world where food security and industrial innovation are top global priorities, cassava — a humble root crop — stands out as a quietly powerful resource. It’s resilient, adaptable, and used in everything from meals to manufacturing. Yet, despite Nigeria being the largest producer of cassava globally, its contribution to the $3.5 billion global cassava export market remains shockingly minimal — hovering around just $1 million.
The paradox is hard to ignore: a crop with massive potential, a country with unmatched output, yet returns that barely scratch the surface.
🥘 Cassava’s Role at Home and Abroad
From the bustling food stalls in Peckham, South East London — fondly known as “Little Lagos” — to the kitchens of Brazil and Thailand, cassava is everywhere. In diaspora hubs like London, shops brim with cassava-based products:
- Garri (fermented grain)
- Fufu (elastic dough)
- Cassava flour (a gluten-free baking option)
- Starch and tapioca pearls
- Even ethanol, biodegradable packaging, and industrial glue
Globally, demand for cassava is rising — driven by both food and non-food industries (textile, biofuels, pharmaceuticals). In fact, cassava is increasingly being recognized as a climate-resilient crop, capable of thriving in marginal soils and unpredictable weather.
Yet, for millions of Nigerian farmers, cassava remains an underperforming asset.
🌱 The Farmer’s Struggle
“Sometimes we can’t even complete our planting,”
says Mrs. Kemi, a smallholder cassava farmer in Ogun State.
“The work is hard, and we have no machinery to help us.”
Like her, millions of cassava farmers in Nigeria still rely on machetes and hoes. They plant, harvest, peel, and process manually — a backbreaking routine that limits yields and income. In a nation with abundant land and ideal growing conditions, productivity should be sky-high. Instead, the supply chain is fragmented, disorganized, and lacking in infrastructure.
Mechanization, access to credit, processing facilities — these remain out of reach for the average farmer.
💸 The Missed Market Opportunity
While Thailand, the world’s second-largest producer, earns billions exporting cassava starch and value-added products, Nigeria — the largest grower — remains trapped in subsistence farming and low-margin sales.
❝ Nigeria produces over 59 million metric tons of cassava annually, but contributes less than 1% to the global trade. ❞
— Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
The gap is not one of potential, but of planning, policy, and support systems.
🛠️ A New Plan to Unlock Cassava’s Value
Enter Dr. Mustafa Bakani, President of the Nigerian Cassava Growers Association. For years, he has been pushing for a coordinated national strategy:
“We must organize farmers into clusters,” he says.
“Give them access to bank loans, introduce processing machinery, and build a pipeline that links them to buyers — both local and international.”
Bakani’s strategy includes:
✅ Creating regional cassava processing hubs
✅ Establishing aggregator cooperatives
✅ Facilitating off-take agreements with large-scale buyers
✅ Working with banks to create soft loan packages for mechanization
Already, pilot clusters are forming across the South-West and North-Central zones, grouping thousands of farmers into production cooperatives that share equipment, storage, and knowledge.
📈 A Potential Economic Engine
“If we all work together — farmers, processors, marketers — cassava could help transform the Nigerian economy,”
says Professor Latif Sanni, a leading global cassava researcher.
The potential is massive:
- Food security: Cassava feeds over 800 million people globally.
- Jobs: Mechanization and processing can create thousands of rural jobs.
- Exports: Starch, flour, ethanol, and industrial derivatives offer lucrative trade opportunities.
- Industrialization: Cassava is a critical raw material in textiles, paper, and adhesives.
According to the National Root Crops Research Institute, Nigeria could multiply its cassava export earnings by 10 within a decade — if it fully embraces value-chain development.
🧩 What’s Missing?
Despite this promise, bottlenecks remain:
- Inconsistent government support
- Poor roads and logistics
- Lack of reliable market data
- Middlemen exploiting price gaps
Still, the tide may be turning. Global attention on food system resilience, plus the rising costs of wheat and maize, are putting cassava back in focus — as an affordable, climate-resilient substitute.
✊🏾 The Road Ahead
Nigeria doesn't need to grow more cassava — it needs to do more with what it already grows.
From Lagos to London, the world is already consuming Nigeria’s cassava. It’s time the country stepped up to control, scale, and profit from its own value chain. With smart policy, private sector investment, and farmer empowerment, cassava could be Nigeria’s next crude oil — but cleaner, greener, and rooted in local prosperity.
📌 Final Thought
Nigeria’s cassava sector is like an untapped oil field. The resource is abundant. The world is thirsty. But until we build the rigs — infrastructure, financing, policy — it will remain just potential. And in a country battling inflation, youth unemployment, and import dependence, that’s a potential we can’t afford to waste.
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