Nigeria has long held a leading position in global cassava production. For years, it has remained the world’s top producer, with annual output estimated at over 50–60 million metric tonnes.
This impressive figure reflects how deeply cassava is woven into everyday life across the country. It is a staple food grown widely in the southern and central regions, as well as parts of the north, and it supports millions of people both as a primary source of calories and as a means of livelihood.
Yet, beneath this dominance lies a significant challenge: production levels are high, but productivity and value addition remain relatively low. On average, cassava yields in Nigeria range between 6 and 10 tonnes per hectare—far below the 30 to 40 tonnes achieved in countries such as Brazil, Thailand, and India.
This gap points to several underlying issues, including outdated farming methods, declining soil quality, limited access to improved planting materials, and the impact of pests and diseases. Many farmers also rely heavily on rain-fed agriculture, which makes production vulnerable to climate variability.
Cassava farming in Nigeria is largely driven by smallholder farmers, most of whom cultivate less than two hectares of land. These farmers often depend on basic tools and family labour, with limited access to financing, machinery, fertilizers, and agricultural extension services.
As a result, despite having favourable growing conditions, actual yields however fall short of what is possible.
Another major hurdle is the limited level of processing and industrial use. More than 80 percent of cassava produced in Nigeria is consumed locally, typically in traditional forms like gari and fufu. Only a small portion is processed into higher-value products such as starch, ethanol, or cassava flour. This stands in contrast to countries like Thailand, which have successfully developed export-focused industries around cassava, turning it into a significant source of foreign exchange.
Several factors continue to limit value addition in Nigeria. Processing facilities and modern technology are not widely available, while transportation and logistics can be costly and inefficient.
Freshly harvested cassava roots have a very short shelf life, leading to substantial post-harvest losses if they are not processed quickly. In addition, weak connections between farmers and industrial processors, along with inconsistent supply chains and limited investment in agro-processing, make it difficult to build a strong, integrated industry.
In many ways, Nigeria’s cassava sector reflects a case of high output without fully capturing its economic potential. The country produces more cassava than any other nation, but it has yet to convert this advantage into higher productivity, stronger industries, and greater export competitiveness.
In the last three years, a coalition led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) involving both local and international partners notably, The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) commenced a silent revolution capable of changing the cassava story in Nigeria or changing the above narratives.
Having understudied the situation in Nigeria, the AATF led coalition adopted models that has the potentials of turning these abysmal situation into a game changing scenario that not only guarantees yield increase but also ensures value addition and enhance farmers’ livelihood.
The AATF led alliance having identified the gap of processing facilities available to the average cassava farmers in the country, set up a processing facility at the Fasola Agribusiness Hub in Oyo state.
The Fasola facility is historically and strategically located in a high cassava-producing area to ensure a steady supply of raw materials.
The low yield per ton experienced in the country did not escape the alliance radar and to address that, an ambitious plan of training about 10,000 farmers and processors was launched with emphasis on Good Agronomic Practices and cassava mechanization as well as value addition.
Within the first three years of the alliance, farmers who participated in the training programmes have started reporting positive feedback on yield increases from the normal 6 to 10 tons per hectare to 20 to 25 tons per hectare. The farmers are also celebrating new income streams as their harvest is no longer devoted only to the production of fufu and gari but they now have the opportunity to process their tubers into high quality cassava flour eliminating wastages and drudgery that are usually associated with peeling and preservation.
