Innovation for Nigerian Cassava and Goat Industries - PART 3 of 5 | Voice of America - English
A Nigerian academic has gained international recognition for a project that?s set to create a new market in his home country. Dr. Kolawole Adebayo?s initiative transforms cassava waste into fodder for goats, with benefits for both farmers and goat keepers. Nigeria is the world?s largest producer of cassava, which is indispensable to West African diets. Up until now, farmers simply burned the chaff from the crop, resulting in little benefit to anyone, and damaging people?s health and the environment with harmful smoke.
?West Africans would be lost withoutcassava!? exclaims Kolawole Adebayo, who?s a senior lecturer in agriculture andrural development at the University of Agriculture at Abeokuta, the capital ofOgun State in southwestern Nigeria. Thecrop is grown in 21 of the country?s 36 states and throughout West Africa?stropical belt and is the region?s staple food. Nigeria alone produces more than40 million metric tons of cassava annually, ensuring that it?s the world?sleading provider of cassava. Adebayo says over 90percent of Nigeria?s cassava output is processed and eaten locally. ?The consumed part of cassava is theroot, which is a starchy root; it looks like potato,? he explains. ?The root isvery high in carbohydrates ? in fact it?s more than 95 percent carbohydrate.? Because of this starchiness, cassava ? after a long periodof boiling to soften it ? is used to make a variety of extremely filling meals.These include a mash known as garri, and a thick porridge called fufu.The concoctions are mostly eaten as accompaniments to meat or soup dishes. Adebayo explains, ?In the poor areas of West Africa,there?s often very little meat available, because it?s expensive. The cassavaporridge is used to make the meal last longer and to make sure that bellies arefilled.? Cassava is sometimes also fried up into chips, and groundinto flour. ?This crop keeps West Africa alive,? says Adebayo. There are, however, significantdrawbacks to Nigeria?s massive cassava output. ?BecauseNigeria is the largest producer and consumer of cassava in the world, there?s alot of waste in the form of cassava peels that [are] generated,? Adebayo says.?For instance, if you uproot one ton of cassava root, the amount of cassavapeel and chaff that?s going to be thrown away as waste will be about 30 percentof that. That?s about 300 kilograms for each ton of cassava root at the stagefor processing. It leads to a big, big mess.? InWest Africa, he adds, cassava waste has always been considered an ?inconvenience,? rather thana potential resource. ?Inmany centers where cassava processing is done, this waste is essentially throwninto a dump. Most of the time, if the dump gets large enough, they set fire(to) it and that emits carbon dioxide and other forms of pollution in theatmosphere.? Theagriculturalist recalls the day when, ?out of the blue,? he was struck with a?wonderful idea? for a solution to the various disadvantages associated withcassava production. ?Iwas watching goats at a dump. They were eating the cassava peels that had driedin the sun. They were eating in a way that showed they loved the cassavawaste,? Adebayo tells VOA. ?And then suddenly I thought, wait aminute: suppose we use the cassava formally as animal feed! The idea (behind) this project is, supposing we now consciously take thecassava peel and chaff, dry it, and package it in such a way that we can thensell to the owners of the goats for feeding their goats.? He then began thinking about ways inwhich the cassava waste could be dried. ?I came up with the simplest and cheapest method: Beingin the tropics, what comes to mind readily is the sun, to use the light andwarmth of the sun to dry the cassava.? Adebayo?s now encouraging the farmers to build ?dryingplatforms made of concrete? on their lands. ?These can be built (cheaply) by local masons. Thecassava peels can then be spread on these to dry out in the sun,? he adds. Adebayo explains that once it?s dry, the cassava chaffcan be stored for a ?long period of time, up to six months. It can then be soldin the local markets to goat keepers? who he plans to educate about thebenefits of feeding the cassava peels to their goats ?as a supplement.? He?s convinced that both the goat keepers and the cassavafarmers of Ogun State will embrace his idea ?wholeheartedly,? and the WorldBank agrees. ?This is an excellent project, with wonderful potential;it is simple and appears feasible,? says Juergen Voegele, head of agricultureat the organization. ?We really think it has growth potential, with a chance ofspreading throughout the region.? Adebayo adds, ?If within the life of this project, whichis two years, cassava processors and goat keepers start getting used to dryingthe cassava and its value as a tradable commodity and using it to feed theiranimals, there will be spontaneous diffusion of these concepts amongneighboring communities. The success will spread by word of mouth.? He says his colleagues at the Abeokuta University havecompleted a study that ?shows that if the goats are fed with this supplementarycassava diet, high in starch, they are likely to gain weight much faster thanif they are left to roam about freely. Fatter, healthier goats equates to moremoney for the goat keepers.? If applied successfully in Ogun State, where cassavaproduction leads the economy, 200,000 farming families who cultivate land,engage in primary food processing and keep livestock in mixed farming systemswill benefit from Adebayo?s project, says the World Bank. ?OgunState is the largest producer of cassava in Nigeria?. Thousands of people growcassava here, so this project could potentially benefit millions of people whodepend on the cassava growers for food and income,? Adebayo says. Heexplains that Ogun State is divided into four agricultural zones, and he plansto identify three suitable locations within a ?local government area? in eachof the zones where the project will be implemented. ?We?ll create a whole new market, with 12 processingcenters,? Adebayo enthuses. He says his project will link 3,600 cassava growers and 600 goat-keepers,and increase farming incomes by about $300 per year ? a substantial amount forpeople in such an impoverished region. ?We have a lot ofvery small cassava processors in Nigeria, who earn between $190 and $300 amonth. Then we also have some very large cassava processors, who earn up to$3,000 a month - but there are only a few of them. Generally, the cassavagrowers are women, and they?re very poor,? Adebayo says. ?(They) usesmall-scale technology for everything, whether harvesting or grating orpreparing the cassava for consumption. They cater to very specific, very smallmarkets.? Adebayosays the goat keepers in Ogun State are generally also very small-scale,keeping only between five and 35 goats each. ?Mainlythe practice is that they leave these goats to wander around free-range, and tofeed on locally available grasses as their main forage.? This, he says, often results in tension and ?open conflict? between goatkeepers, farmers and members of local communities. .Goats are very naughty animals,? Adebayo comments, ?they go into people?sfarms; they go into people?s houses and mess up a lot of things.? Hesays his project will hopefully ?eliminate fights? in local communities as aresult of the ?bad behavior? of goats. ?Byhaving the supplementary feeding, it?s our hope that there?ll be fewer goatswandering around causing trouble, because they?ll be fed in enclosures with thedried cassava.? Adebayo?sinitiative will also benefit goat-keepers who are threatened by dwindling accessto forage for their animals. ?There?salso the problem of growing urbanization. Many of the areas where goat forageused to be available, are disappearing. Homes and villages are being built onthis land where the goats used to feed. This means that to keep the level ofgoat keeping at the current level or to have more, there is a need forsupplementary feeding in an area where so much cassava waste is available?.? Voegelesays it?s initiatives such as Adebayo?s that give him hope that Africa issuccessfully confronting the many challenges facing the continent?sagricultural sectors.